*Link for tickets to Syndicate Sound Session 008 ft. Entangled Mind
Music is art, but is there some science to it as well? I like to think so. Science is “the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena (Wordnik.com).” It’s like a body of knowledge gained through experience. Scientists share facts and findings with one another much the same as musicians share sounds and techniques. In a way, and I’m shooting from the hip here, music is a science of art. A bold statement, I know, and one that I’ll happily delineate.
Truthfully, after my latest electric discussion with Boston based DJ and producer Entangled Mind, aka Marissa Barbato, my psyche has been ruminating on the intermingling between art and science. Music is merely notes of vibration after all. Is that not Physics, frequency, and amplitude? Have you seen what happens to water when that bass hits? It dances much like humans. That makes sense, the human body is composed largely of hydrogen molecules, roughly 60% by many calculations. That’s just biology and chemistry at play right there, folks.
My conversation with Entangled Mind spanned areas of scientific and philosophical discourse, along with topics covering creativity and inspiration. I’ll tell you how Marissa’s Mind came to be Entangled, because that was a topic I was eager to gain insight on. How did Marissa settle on her namesake? For her answer, she delved into theories of the quantum kind.
“In physics, there’s a concept called quantum entanglement. So you have two [objects] and they’re in an entangled state. The state of one is going to be directly correlated to the other. If there’s a property on one, the state of that property will directly affect the state of the other one, even without passing information between them. They have this connection. I really like the idea that everything in the universe is in an entangled state.
If you think about the Big Bang Theory, everything originated out of a single point and just has been expanding. If everything expands from this entangled state, it really echoes that everything is connected. I guess that sounds a little corny, but to me, music is all about connection. Then the mind part is that this is kind of all like my [own] perspective. We’re all connected, but this is sort of from my personal entangled experience. This is my expression of this entangled experience that we’re all connected in.”
You can definitely tell a vibrant intellect bristles within Marissa. She’s a person who takes time to research and study concepts so she can understand their application and how they work. That’s one of the items that makes her an adept musician and producer. Comprehension of music theory, the science of vibrations. I asked Marissa to explain when her entanglement with music began, and she harkened back to her youth and instrumental family influence.
“A lot of my family is musical. My dad plays keyboards, and then he has like, 10 siblings, and most of them play music, and my grandfather plays music. Then on my mom’s side, her brother is an incredible drummer. So I sort of just grew up with it, kind of surrounded by it. I started playing guitar when I was 10, and then from there, I [was] very quickly drawn towards writing my own songs. So, growing up, I was kind of immersed in it.”
I inquired about influences, bands and artists, that inspired her not only in the distant past, but also towards the beginnings of her electronic project as Entangled Mind. She listed staples of classic rock like AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne, indie acts like MGMT, and even included the Red Hot Chili Peppers. However, it all changed once she went to study at university.
“When I went to college, RPI, is when I heard electronic music for the first time. That really blew my mind. I’d never heard sounds like this! The potential of a song was infinite, any sound you can imagine. That really got my attention, and in my first year of college is when I discovered Shpongle, Phuturerimitive, as well as Skrillex and more EDM stuff. To this day, Shpongle [is one] of my biggest influences. That was sort of the beginning of it.
When I moved to South Carolina is when I started being exposed to more psychedelic bass music like Mindex, Sixis, BogTrotter. Artists who had this psychedelic sound design. Discovering artists like that is sort of what made me hone in on that sound. Because up until this point, I was always making music, but it was all over the place. I didn’t really have a sound, but discovering those artists in the Psybass world is sort of when I felt like this is something that I could really go deep in. That’s when I started taking production more seriously.
In college, when I first discovered electronic music, I downloaded Ableton, but I didn’t really know what I was doing for a while. It was just kind of trial and error, experimentation for fun. When I moved down to South Carolina, I had more time now that I was graduated. I started taking one-on-one lessons and online classes to learn sound design. That’s when I started Entangled Mind, when I found the music that I wanted to focus on. Not that I was looking for music to focus on. It just sort of happened that way.”
Does an artist find their genre of art, or does art find the artist? It’s almost like we’re merely conduits expressing meanings that we’ve come to understand. I mentioned that I believe art to be something like a representation of perspective. I asked if she felt that when she first started producing her own sounds, if her early work reflected her interpretation of other people’s ideas. She replied, “I would say so. Maybe you’ve heard something, and you like it, so it appeals to you. You’re always drawing influences from your environments and what you like. If you’re working on something, you’re like, ‘oh, it needs a sound like this.’ You’re sort of recalling from memory. I feel like you’re usually not just coming with a brand new idea out of the ether.”
Our most original creations and productions come from learned and personal experiences. In a way, that which we put forth is an attempt in trying to share our comprehension with others. It begins as we try to copy that which we hear or see before it expands into a form of original reconstitution. When I touched on the idea of performance and production being examples of perspective, it elicited this response from Marissa. “That makes a lot of sense. When you go to write music, it is your take on the same world and music that we all have access to, but you are going to have a unique perspective on that. Your interpretation of being inspired from something might be totally different [from] someone else’s take.”
I was curious to know about Entangled Mind’s process for producing music. Her catalog is consistently growing alongside her originality. She released her debut album in 2021, Eternal Motion, then a full 10-track LP, Lucid Living, in April 2024. I asked for a bit of perspective into her studio habits. Does she have a set of routines she follows? How does she go about creating her music?
“The creation has to happen just by doing it and see what comes out. I find that’s the best way. To not have resistance with it, or not feel like you have creative blocks, just removing the pressure that you have to sit down and write something good. Just start writing something, and then you can decide if it’s something you want to keep later.
So, last year, if I didn’t have a specific thing I was working on, I would set a timer for an hour. I’m going to start a new song idea. Very often I would get in the flow with that and just keep writing and spend maybe, five hours on it. I ended up writing the most new material last year that I ever had, because I was doing that pretty frequently.
I sort of see the first half of making a song is putting all the ideas on the table. I try to not let myself get too hung up on mixing or sound design or making it sound perfect at this time. The idea is to just get all the ideas out as fast as possible. Because when you’re in that initial session, I feel like that’s when you can really get the most out.”
Entangled Mind is part of The Rust Music collective’s incredibly talented roster. Rust Music is a production company, talent agency, record label, and music blog headquartered in New York City operating throughout the country and continually expanding beyond. I asked about Entangled Mind’s relationship with the organization and some of its members.
“It’s been great. I’ve been working with them for years. Before I joined officially, we had been connected for a bit. When I lived in South Carolina is when I became familiar with them. I was listening to a lot of their artists, and I feel like they’ve always had a variety of music that they release and it’s always good music. They have really good taste, and the things that they’re part of is always good quality. So, it has always been very respectable to me.
When I moved to Boston, I became connected to a couple of folks. Josh [Kipersztok], Smigonaut, actually is one of them. When I moved back to Boston, I was working as a software engineer at iZotope. They make plug-ins, so a lot of software that producers use for sound design and mixing and mastering. So, I was sitting in the cafeteria one day, eating lunch with my new co-workers, and there’s a lot of musicians at the company. We’re just chatting, and Josh is like, ‘Oh yeah, I make electronic music too.’ And I’m like, what’s your name? And he’s like, ‘Smigonaut’. And I was like, what? That’s crazy! I’ve been listening to your music for a while! That’s how Josh and I became connected, and then I also met my now roommate, Jake Maxfield, through the local Boston music scene.
Entangled Mind has got a lot to look forward to this year. She’ll be playing two festivals in Europe: Psy Fi in Germany and Ozora Fest in Hungary along with plenty of stateside dates as well. She’s confirmed for the final Fam Fest, June 6-7, at Freedom Field in Maine, plus she’s been announced for the final Tipper and Friends event, April 18-20, at Suwannee in Live Oak, FL. She’s also co-headlining a Suburban Sound Syndicate event, March 29, at Rookie’s Rochaus for a Rust Music takeover alongside Smigonaut, Ovoid, Esok, and the debut of Gunk. Before parting ways, I asked Entangled Mind if she was planning anything special for these upcoming events.
“This winter, I’ve really been grinding in the studio. It was just announced, but I’m playing Tipper and Friends at Suwannee, so I’ve been writing a ton of new music for that show. [Syndicate Sound Session 008] is a few weeks before that, so I’m going to get to test out a lot of what I’ve been working on. So you guys are going to get a sneak peek of some of this new music I haven’t played anywhere else. I have a lot of new music.”
Awesome to hear, and It’s shaping up to be one helluva a year for Entangled Mind. You can find more information about Entangled Mind through her Rust Music profile which includes links to her social media and various platforms where you can stream her music. However, here’s a link to her Soundcloud so you can instantly check out her tunage.
Be well, be successful. Bear Swiftly.
–Electro Scribe–
*Link for tickets to Syndicate Sound Session 008 ft. Entangled Mind
