Warm Deltas
Warm Deltas’ Cyrus Shahmir; press photo.
Cyrus Shahmir of Warm Deltas has made the grand trek from his home in Atlanta, Georgia to the western Pacific shores of Los Angeles to gift the world the new Rex Virginem EP available May 20 from Psych Army Intergalactic, premiering today the meditative psych span of space and time—”Hiding”. The artist who has given us nuggets from The NEC & Night Cleaner who we last talked to with the release of last year’s impressive mind-melting Grabbing Clouds wonder, Burning Paisley, continues to make music for folks seeking a choose your own enlightenment vision quest. Also preparing for some local Los Angeles dates with Shawnthony Calypso May 26-29, Shahmir continues to bring the Warm Deltas-trip from out of the mouths and praise of the obscure blogs and word of mouth exchanges to provide a thinking person’s brand of psych to audiences that maybe wouldn’t be so include to imbibe such esoterica. We could someday soon see the wonderful world of Warm Deltas become something of a California household name in the near, and present future.
“Hiding” is the emergence of all the surreal, and lesser known and sung southern DIY heros for new audiences. This is Warm Deltas reaching forth from the nooks and crannies of the ATL reaching vapors of Cyrus’s vocals that move like westward wafting waves of fog that traverse and tease the Eastern leaning influences that have influenced the canonized legends and forebears. “Hiding” brings about the counter culture components and truths of heady sound waves that move through concrete chord progression hooks that rope in all the effects, oscillating effects and other oddities that appear and disappear from the song’s hallucinogenic atmosphere. One imagines “Hiding” being a gift to the west coast, a gift to soccer/yoga moms looking for a new transcendental sound, blurry beacons for the Silicon Valley big wigs to get weird to, to soundtrack Venice Beach, the Santa Monica Pier, to anywhere, or wayward direction the Warm Deltas sound may go. Stay with us now for our following interview with Cyrus Shahmir.
Tell us what the journey from ATL to LA has been like for you personally & creatively.
It’s been probably the most challenging and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, hands down. At a real low point in my life, I wrote myself a check for the amount of FREEDOM. I made cashing that check my goal. I feel like my life is now very much on track to what I’ve envisioned for a long time. It was a big deal for me to pack up all my stuff, studio equipment, guitars and go to another place. It basically took a year from when I said I was going to move to when it actually happened. I think some people thought I may not actually do it. But it always felt like something I had to do and wanted to do, and I was fortunate that some things worked out to facilitate making it happen. Creatively, there’s no doubt it had a big impact on me. In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m learning everything again but better with all these skills I didn’t have before.
How has the adjustment been?
The adjustment has been pretty seamless since the initial move. It was pretty hellish driving out to LA in September. But seeing the whole country like that definitely changes you for the better. I got a huge kick out of New Mexico and Arizona. I’m definitely into the LA thing. I like living here.
What substantial differences & similarities have you noticed as a compare/contrast between ATL & LA?
Well, the West Coast and the South are truly different places. That’s a difference that’s hard to quantify, exactly, until you spend time in both. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I see LA in a lot of ways as a place like Atlanta but ten times bigger in all respects. The biggest thing to me, personally, is there is no comparison in the world for studios. LA has the best studios, the most gear, etc. For someone who does recording professionally, LA has what you need. It’s actually mind-boggling how many amazing studios there are and the amount of excellent gear there is all over the city. Culturally, I’m new to LA, so everything is fresh and I’m open to anything. But I do miss my friends and the good spots in the A.
Take us through the Warm Deltas catalogue from She Went To Japan, Burning Paisley, to the new Rext Virginem EP (not to mention your previous works with The NEC & Night Cleaner); what sorts of progressions & evolutions do you notices with that reflection on how your own work has grown along with you?
I think fundamentally, everything I’ve tried to get out of those other projects is becoming encapsulated in this project. It may not be apparent quite yet but there’s definitely a progression musically on all fronts. I think the N.E.C. was and always will be a growth experiment. Sometimes things go dormant to re-emerge. If you look at the history of that band, we’ve had quite a number of members but we always seemed to maximize what we could do with the line-ups in the studio. But we always had line-up problems. But that’s being bands, that shit happens all the time. The thing with the N.E.C. was, even though we might have been on the fringe of everything at all times (isn’t there a beauty in that?), we always managed to record ourselves and take that snapshot, so there’s a lot to mine and it never feels like it was a futile endeavor. So, I kind of see Warm Deltas as starting back at square one, like being back in high school. I recorded a lot of music in high school. Going back and listening to it, I’m amazed that with no frame of reference and very limited resources, I managed in a lot of ways to get to that psychedelic place I was trying to get to but at that time I had no idea what was up or down, so it felt like wash. But with some growth and perspective, I can see that getting to where you want musically is about truly listening to what your soul wants to make and ONLY worrying about that when you’re in the studio or your writing a real song. She Went To Japan was me (metaphorically) recording songs in between classes, figuring out stuff, trying stuff once, moving on. Burning Paisley was maybe after graduation, freshman year of college, getting weirder, getting a little darker…o now, Rex Virginem is more fleshed-out and has more focus but to me it’s the stage inside the egg before true life emerges. The main thread that ties it all together is a deep love of psychedelia and drone mixed with a respect and fascination with songwriting. I’ve always wanted to do music that spanned the spectrum from pure abstraction to pure songwriting form.
Rex Virginem cover.
Describe what the making of the Rex Virginem EP was like, and what inspired the name?
I actually booked a small West Coast solo tour in Aug of 2015 about five months before doing it. Eventually, it turned out that I was going to move in Sept, so the trip was kind of a pre-game for the real thing. Instead of couch-surfing with my girlfriend, Rachel, we ended up being able to stay in our current house. So for those two weeks, I stayed at the new house and started recording on my studio partner and roommate, John Armstrong’s, rig. The first two songs were Hiding and The Shamans Say. I finished the rest when I moved out. The name relates to the subjects of the whole record. The idea is that there’s something we’re all looking for and it’s hiding. Where it’s hiding is that place we’re trying to get to, that’s the Rex Virginem. Sort of an elevated state.
What are you looking forward to the most with your upcoming May 26-29 dates with Shawnthony Calypso?
Aside from seeing my good buddies, Reid and Josh (Jovontaes), I’m most excited to debut the full-band incarnation of the band with the addition of drummer, James Dedakis. We’re getting ready to go into the studio after that to cut a full-length and I’m truly can’t wait. It will be a marked advancement I think on all fronts.
Should we expect any upcoming collaborative endeavors between you all?
I do a synth-based project, Soundtrack, and I frequently collaborate with people on that. Most consistently, I work with Harvey Leisure of Nest Egg. We’re really close friends and we always find a way to work with each other. I also recorded the new Nest Egg record in Asheville, NC before I moved and we just recently went into a wonderful room in Hollywood for three days and mixed it. Can’t wait for that to come out.
Tell us what your current favorite things are these days, as far as leisure, listening, reading, watching, whatever.
I’m really into gardening and plants. It’s nice out here for that. I also like to go hiking when possible. I’ve been reading about Ed Kienholz recently and always I’m reading some sort of esoteric literature. Musically, I’m always most into what my friends are up to. I’m lucky enough that when I need something new, nine times out of ten, one of my friend’s projects will have something new to either work on or listen to. Most excited about Psych Army homies, the Difference Machine, and their new album dropping June 24th. I play a bunch of stuff on there and recorded a large portion of that before I moved. Nest Egg’s new LP, All the Saints have a new 7″ I’m pumped on, Harry Talin, Primitive Ricky, Bary Center, and ATL buds, Omni, are picking up steam, so I’m happy for them. As for old stuff, I have recently been listening to The Raik’s Progress. Super-good 60’s psych garage. That and Bruce Palmer’s first record. There may be some influences from that one on the next record.
And always and forever…Session Man…
Warm Deltas’ Rex Virginem EP is available now from Psych Army Intergalactic.
