BY KAT H. WENTZELL
PHOTO BY JORDYN LYRIC
22-year-old Pennsylvanian Paul Marchesani is the electronic phenomenon known as Forest Kids. By day, he is a regular college student, and by night, he is an experimental innovator. His music is truly one of a kind, and those interested in experiencing his concepts are encouraged to start with his latest EP, titled Storefront, which just recently dropped on December 15th.
How exactly would you describe your music?
Marchesani: "Enticing. It’s less of 'OH F*CK,' and more of, like, 'Whoa, I haven’t heard of anything like this.' That’s at least what I’m going for. It’s at least something that I would enjoy, something that I would want to hear personally. [My music] is definitely conceptual and melodic. I just can’t not write a melody."
What genre would you classify your music as?
Marchesani: "Electronic and experimental, for sure. It’s also a mixture of IDM, lo-fi hip-hop, trip-pop….I don’t know, there’s a lot of subgenres."
What makes Forest Kids Collective unique?
Marchesani: "The cool thing about the Forest Kids records themselves is that they all combine to create one big record. It’s [my past records,] Hace, Xpress Window, Wave Complex, and Fever Aches all making a record together, and that’s the Forest Kids experience."
Can you talk about your most recent record, Storefront?
Marchesani: "It’s everywhere. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon….you can [even] Shazam it. [The album’s] really cool because there are no taken samples at all, but you could be like, 'This sounds like it’s from something else.' [For example,] I did [audio production] a while ago at Mother Bethel Church, which was the first African-American church in America, and they had this amazing choir. I got a copy of the stems and reversed them. [The track] is this religious praise with a spiritual power to it, and it’s reversed, so you don’t know what they’re saying, but you can still feel the power in it. That track is in the first song of Storefront. There are a bunch of tracks on that record that can make you go, 'Where the hell did he get that?' I didn’t steal anything, I did it all myself. I’m really proud of that."
How long did it take you to put it all together?
PHOTO BY JORDYN LYRIC
Marchesani: "Probably about, in total, two years. Just getting all of the samples together took time."
Do you have any shows or important events coming up that people should know about?
Marchesani: "I’m playing a show at the Doom Saloon this month. I’ll be doing the whole EP live there. I will also be putting out an ambient Christmas album on Christmas."