Synths and samples

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This article was published 13/12/2024 (372 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Halen Swyston wants to wind down, he usually reaches into his vinyl collection for The Best of Music and Rhythm, a compilation pressed in 1983 — 24 years before he was born in Winnipeg.

“It’s a great record,” says the 17-year-old electronic experimental artist, an Animal Collective devotee who performs expansive, lively synth music at open mics across the city under the name Kolakolapop.

Peter Gabriel, XTC, Morris Pert and Jon Hassell aren’t necessarily the type of artists one expects a soon-to-be Miles Mac graduate to gravitate toward, but the album opened Swyston’s mind to something he couldn’t find trending on TikTok. His favourite song right now is Mirror in the Bathroom by the English Beat.

“Specifically the dub version,” he clarifies.

The East St. Paul teen’s path to electronic music began when he rang in his 15th year by upgrading from a standard Casio keyboard to a Korg Minilogue, given to him by his mom and grandparents as a combined Christmas and birthday gift.

“When I first started making music, it was on guitar or bass, but gradually I became more electronically inclined, implementing more out-there sounds into what I was making,” says Swyston, whose interest in music can be traced to first-grade piano lessons and a love for the indie videogame Undertale.

“I started messing around with the resonance settings, and what that did was create a sweeping sound. It sounded kind of like a spaceship.”

In the house where he lives with his mom and grandparents, armed with a Roland T8 and his Minilogue, Swyston organically discovered sounds from his family’s record collection, augmenting it through monthly visits to Into the Music.

His ears open, Swyston started to hit the local open-mic circuit, playing sets at the Cube organized by The Purple Room and at X-Cues, where he stood out from the crowd at the weekly Caravan showcase.

At X-Cues on a Monday in March, following a reading from playwright Grant Guy and a spoken-word performance from Quidam, an outsider artist whose shoulder boasts a parrot, a Carhartt-hoodied Swyston took to the stage to perform On My Way, the first song he’d written using electronic instruments.

Swooning and sweeping, the song is a mantra about inertia.

“It doesn’t matter what you’re going to do, it’s all going to end up the same,” Swyston explains.

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While playing his own music across the city, Swyston also started to attend more shows. His early teen years dominated by the pandemic, Swyston was eager to listen to music made beyond his bedroom door.

Last year, a friend of his mother’s bought Swyston a ticket to see the merry comic punk stylings of B.A. Johnston, an independent artist from Hamilton who has released more albums than Swyston’s lived years.

“I didn’t know music could be as comical as it was,” says Swyston, who adds that Johnston quickly became an idol. “I watch Flight of the Concords, but I kind of figured that to a certain extent music had to be serious. I liked seeing all the different angles (B.A.) perceived sound.”

He liked the show, and as one does to support a newfound musical inspiration, Swyston bought a T-shirt and introduced himself at the merch table.

Come July, the teen found himself amid a more youthful cohort at Birds Hill Park, where Swyston was participating in the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s Young Performers program — a festival feature that’s helped launch careers for artists such as Roman Clarke, Boy Golden, Sweet Alibi and Slow Leaves.

“They weren’t sure where to put him because he was the only one who didn’t show up with an acoustic guitar. All he had was a sample pad,” says Swyston’s mentor TJ Blair, a member of Blonde Goth and the Stanley County Cut-Ups.

“As a teenager, your artistic sensibilities can be very rigid, but Halen had very mature and discerning taste.”

Blair was impressed by Swyston’s enthusiasm and curiosity and intrigued by the teenager’s unintentional icebreaker: a B.A. Johnston T-shirt worn on the first day of Young Performers workshops.

As it turned out, the Cut-Ups and Johnston had played dozens of shows together across the country; Johnston stays on Blair’s couch when he’s in town.

“B.A. Johnston is his own genre. It’s incomparable to anything else,” he says.

But Blair still saw some shared DNA with Kolakolapop, a project Swyston named after a bespoke syrup he saw being sold at a local farmer’s market.

“They’re both one-man bands using digital (interfaces),” says Blair, who put in a good word.

Five months later, Swyston is opening — with Smokey Tiger, another genreless artist — Saturday for B.A. Johnston’s Krampustacular Xmas Meat Draw at the Time(s) Changed (tickets are $17 at Eventbrite).

Swyston, who dreams of scoring video games and has considered careers in city planning and graphic design, plans on taking time off after graduating in June to focus on his music.

His mentor Blair is a believer.

“I’m just trying to get Halen in front of this music community because he has a place here if he wants one in this city and beyond.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com