Interview: Andrew Fox of VISUALS On His New Album ‘Light Breaks’

Photo by Noelle Marie

Andrew Fox is a creator of many dimensions. A songwriter, producer and interdisciplinary artist in the always-evolving New York City scene, Fox began performing as VISUALS around the globe, beginning in 2013 Berlin against the backdrop of its electronic music scene and releasing his eponymous debut EP on Nicolas Jaar’s Other People label. Fox has since returned to NYC and continues his sonic transformation in the spaces of experimental psychedelic rock, electronic, disco and soul music, making him the perfect fit of eclecticism on the Brooklyn-based House of Feelings label.

On the release of his new album, Light Breaks, +rcmndedlisten spoke with Andrew Fox via e-mail about his creative community, working alongside DARKSIDE’s Dave Harrington and the Range, and transformation.

+rl: Your output work and output has always been multidimensional. At one point in 2019, you dropped the VISUALS moniker and began releasing albums under your own name. And yet, Light Breaks sounds completely apart from everything that came before it. What prompted the return to VISUALS?

Andrew Fox: Appreciate that you hear the multiverse in it all! Shock by Shock, which was my 2019 record, was actually intended to be a VISUALS record. I had worked on that one for years and I was very much in my head about it, which led to it becoming quite maximalist. It also was very much a “songwriting” record, in which the main goals were probably more about storytelling within each song than a unified, musical aesthetic. So, long story short, I felt there was a significant distance from my prior VISUALS output, which has always sought to be equal parts electronic and acoustic. On top of that, I had one of those classic late night ego deaths. I wiped my social media of past VISUALS content and needed a clean slate, psychologically. I still love that record and want to probably re-release it as a VISUALS offering some day.

With Light Breaks, the production process was inherently different, from the get. I was already working with Matty Fasano from my label House of Feelings. The focus of the label is indie electronic, dance and now post-punk music, which is totally aligned with my longstanding goals in VISUALS. We wanted to orient it around 60s psych-pop – some Pet Sounds, Scott Walker, Os Mutantes but keep a rhythmic spine of disco / new wave / electronica. Where I do depart from more groove based tunes (the album cut “Paris Berlin” for instance,) there is an obvious connection to those vintage influences. So when it came time to make the decision about the project moniker, it was obvious that the collaboration was VISUALS, not Andrew Fox. Plus, I discovered a multiverse full of other Andrew Fox’s, even tried to make a documentary about it. But they didn’t get back to me!

+rl: This is your first release on House of Feelings, the label led by Brooklyn-based producer and multi-instrumental Matty Fasano of the dance collective of the same name. It also features vocal contributions from labelmates Ang Low and Andrew Leonard as well as Julia Kwamya. How has that relationship influenced your creative approach this time around?

Fox: Matty and I have actually known each other since around 2007, when we were fresh to Brooklyn music, and we’ve played in similar bands and just kinda evolved in parallel trajectories. I think a crucial moment for our musical friendship was in a gig at Cameo Bar in Williamsburg (now defunct) in 2015. I had come back to NYC from Berlin, where I was living and touring as a one man solo electronic act. Matty was there and we realized how similarly we’d evolved. House of Feelings was actually a live dance duo just then. That spark lit a flame a few years later, when Matty asked me to do a guest spot on his radio show at Newtown Radio. I played some super early demos and we were off to the races collaborating.

The record was absolutely shaped by our aesthetic intersection, and since we understand each other’s ears, on a production level, it was easy to trust. Both of us had executive power to say ‘no’ to any section or idea, and made the promise to have no ego about it. We could trim the fat and just get to the cut. And absolutely, the House of Feelings community (and my friend group writ large) was important to the making of the record, as far as collaborating on vocals, hanging out at the studio and just vibing with the tracks etc. In retrospect, the communal aspect helped to give the in-process songs an early audience too. I write with Ang and Julia, and produced Andrew’s last record on House of Feelings, so the exchange is deep.

+rl: Fellow experimentalist Dave Harrington (of DARKSIDE) is someone you’ve also worked with in the past as part of the Dave Harrington Trio. Alongside the Range, their production presence can be felt in an electronic psychedelic energy flowing through the album, and yet, it still feels like a dance album. In your own words, how would you describe the shape of your sound today?

Fox: Our in studio mantra was that this record is “dance music Pet Sounds”. On a level of genre, I would say the record is rooted is psychedelic music, from pop to rock to soul. You can call “Delivery Man” psychedelic soul, or “Light Breaks” psychedelic rock. Obviously these days everyone is generally in a hyphenate category, especially when creating records on Ableton, which has been every VISUALS record pretty much.

Dave and James (The Range) are my brothers and advisors. They each have a very distinct way into experimental and textural music. DH is like an ancient, Dionysion wizard, who channels lightning through his guitar and leaves the place a glorious, multicolored mess. James is the more outwardly rational scientist – he finds his way into these amazing musical spaces and ideas through his meticulous, insatiable inquiries. They both love a good groove, so they anchor me by offering these differing approaches to musical ideas with aim of making worlds that no one has really heard before.

+rl: Themes of transformation make themselves known through the listen without it sounding like a cliché “pandemic album” despite it being written during the throes of 2020. How would you describe the creative evolution of Andrew Fox and VISUALS following Light Breaks, now on the other side of it all?

Fox: On one level, it’s absolutely a pandemic record given the backdrop of the process – me and Matty meeting at the studio in the dead of winter in industrial Bushwick, everything closed for business, just dreaming about a vaccine and a real life audience again. But the writing of the record was began before the “pandy,” and is more linked to a more personal moment.

I wasn’t sure how to pick up the pieces after Shock by Shock, which didn’t quite hit like I thought, and in general wasn’t sure how to move forward as an artist of certain age. To top it off, I was heart-broken. So, I high-tailed it to Mexico in early 2019, after my Bed Stuy apartment was bought and sold from under us and they jacked the rent. There was a lot of wandering, a lot of mezcal, getting lost in deserts and on coastlines, and I felt quite alone. From a rented room in Mexico City, I began writing the record, starting with the song ”Light Breaks”.

Now on the other side of it, I do feel as though I found the light through the darkness. I’m so grateful for the community vis a vis House of Feelings, my studio crew, the weirdos still making shit in Brooklyn. I’m very proud of this record, because it’s already done the job of delivering me from that state of feeling isolated, disconnected and alone into one where I am confident about where I stand. A lot is yet to come.

VISUALS’ Light Breaks is available now on House of Feelings.