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It is the year 2005... the future is now and the machines are rising! In the '80s and '90s, music and films theorized of a new century in which humanity would be obsolete and machines would take over all aspects of our lives. With the release of their full-length debut Transhuman, Cyanotic are out to prove that the mechanization has begun. Selling out 1,200 of their self-released EP Mutual Bonding Through Violation, starting their own label, and collaborating with coldwave pioneers Acumen Nation, DJ? Acucrack, and Chemlab, Transhuman is an industrial rock album for the not-so-new millennium, detailing a programmed concept of controlled mutation and cold, disciplined, and ethical evolution. Vocalist Sean Payne took some time with ReGen to explain what drives Cyanotic's engine, the stagnant state of today's industrial and electronic scenes and even managing to fit in a quote from Family Guy.

In the liners for Transhuman , it states that all three of you handle programming. What is the group dynamic like among the three of you? What is the songwriting process like and how do you determine the final product?

Payne: I basically do about 85 percent of the initial programming and structuring. Drew comes in after a while and usually adds the main synth and figures out where the guitars fit. Brian came along very close to the completion of the album, so there wasn't much remaining for the guy to do except add a couple fills and play bass on 'Axiom.' He's going to have a much bigger role in the next batch of songs we are starting right now, though.

I see, so Cyanotic was originally you and Drew, and Brian came along later in the game. You have a drummer when you play live. Are there any plans to bring him into the fold for future recordings, or is he strictly for live purposes?

Payne: Yeah. Cyanotic was a strictly Sean and Drew production for about four years. Brian came along after we did some remix work together for Acumen Nation and Chemlab. We had been friends for years before that, but up until then (about October of 2004), we hadn't ever really done a serious collaboration. As for the drummer, we definitely have plans to incorporate live drums into the recordings. It won't be 'live drums' in the way people think, though. We aren't going to be recording rock drums or whatever. It will be like cEvin Key in Skinny Puppy or something, recording a live drummer on an electronic percussion kit, to give the breaks and fills a little more life and variation.

It also mentions that Drew handles hardware while Brian handles software. With the hardware vs. software subject being a very popular discussion these days in the electronic music community, how do you find a balance between the two? What advantages/disadvantages are there to hardware/software?

Payne: Hehe, well, for this particular album and everything before it, we really only used the software. We had a couple pieces of hardware around the studio from time to time, things that we would all borrow from friends or steal from music stores, and Drew just happened to have the most. So I gave the guy a credit for it. As for hardware vs. software, both have advantages. I think software is the winner, though. It's versatile, cheap, sounds good, and is very easy to transport.

Ah, so Transhuman and the EP were done mostly on software?

Payne: Yeah, Mutual Bonding Through Violation was built from 100 percent software and a Toshiba laptop. We had a couple hardware synths for Transhuman . Nothing big, just a Novation rack unit, and I think an MS2000 at some point.

I have an MS2000B. I like that synth. That leads into my next question actually. Music fans these days are a lot more tech-savvy than they used to be it seems, so I'm sure you get asked about what gear you use quite a bit. Are there any particular pieces of gear, either hardware or software that you and/or the other members of the band favor?

Payne: Yeah, we use the MS2000 live for bass synth. It's a nice li'l piece. Gear we favor? Hmm. E-Phonic Lo-Fi. That's a killer VST effect. Absynth 3.0 and Z3ta+ are great soft synths as well. Oh, drum programming and sequencing? Most people will never guess and I don't know if I want 'em to.

Hehe, fair enough. No killing the mystery then. So besides the phrase on the back cover, 'Our role models are machines,' the music of Cyanotic is very tech-sounding and combines different elements of varying electronic styles. Since a heavy guitar/rock element seems to be present as well in your music, could Cyanotic do music without machines?

Payne: No.

You wouldn't want to?

Payne: Plain and simple, there is no way we could make music without electronics. It would be impossible for me. There's no interest in doing that at all. We aren't going to go from very electronic with some metal to very metal with some electronics like so many other bands. We don't have the slightest interest in doing that one bit. I know the most interesting things going on in our music revolve around synths, electronic percussion, and samples. I would never strip ourselves of that, because unlike so many other bands with guitars, we are an electronic music project first. None of the songwriting begins with acoustic instruments or anything... 100 percent electronic.

Besides being released on CrackNation and Digital Brothel, Transhuman was released on your own label, Glitch Mode Recordings. Why start your own label? What is its purpose or concept or its mission compared to that of other labels?

Payne: Glitch Mode is just something I feel I had to try, mainly because I hear some great, unsigned artists and want to help 'em out, whether it was releasing an EP, or doing some remixes together or whatever. Labels for the electronic/industrial scene seem to be missing variety nowadays. Every label is 'scene specific.' That's not something I want with Glitch Mode. I just want to release what sounds good to my ears, without having to pander to a bunch of social cliques.

So you do have plans to release other artists on Glitch Mode?

Payne: Yeah. We have a couple in mind. The site for Glitch Mode is set to debut within the next week. There will be a small artist roster and some news about compilations we are releasing.

The label is called Glitch Mode Recordings, and there is a heavy glitch element in the music of Cyanotic, akin to the sort of sounds one might expect from IDM bands like Aphex Twin or Autechre. How does the band approach using glitches and random noise to create something that people might refer to as music? Why do you think glitches are so popular these days?

Payne: Well, the Glitch Mode thing, that's just more of an in-joke if anything. It's also a reference to Busta Rhymes, his Flip Mode imprint. As for all the glitching and stutters, we don't even consciously think about it, really. It always just ends up in the music because that kind of thing always sounds good as a transition or something for a bridge, like the glitching vocal sample in 'Deface,' for example. That's my favorite glitch. I think that took me about six hours. No wait, maybe just two and it felt like six. I can't remember anymore.

I actually love that part of 'Deface.' It's so catchy.

Payne: Yeah, that's something I want to be doing more: infusing that glitch element into the material even more so. You can definitely expect that from at least a few of the new songs.

Awesome. You've toured with bands like Nocturne and Bile, and with your sound being what it is, Cyanotic seems to be seen as an industrial band. How do you respond to this categorization? What are your thoughts on the current industrial scene?

Payne: We have no problem with the industrial music tag. I mean, it's heavy and it's electronic, and most of our biggest influences are from that particular genre. So we have no qualms about it. As long as you leave it at 'industrial' and don't start breaking it down into the dreaded sub-genres. I hate that shit. Somehow 'industrial' becomes some asinine sub-genre like 'post-tech digi-elektro-core.' Shit like that is ruining this 'scene.' Too many people worrying about classifying every band and using music as an accessory to fashion. I think the current industrial music scene is nearing complete stagnation. Every band seems to be embracing the 'Euro dance with scary vocals' thing now; too many of the current bands sound like Haddaway or psy-trance with an angry guy whispering through a fuzzbox. I think there's some hope, with bands like Kill Memory Crash, to bring back some elements of interest.

I agree; there is a lot of the same kind of sound going on with this whole terror-EBM and power noise thing, and these sub-genres didn't even exist in name until a couple of years ago.

Payne: People just make these names out of thin air. I mean, 'Hellektro?' When I heard that, I couldn't stop laughing. That, and 'tech-core digi-slaughter,' or something.

You've also toured with Andrew W.K. and The Dillinger Escape Plan, bands that many would not consider industrial at all. What was it like trying to play to an audience that might not normally fit with your style of music? What advantages/disadvantages are there to playing to a non-industrial or non-electronic audience?

Payne: It's never a bad thing to integrate 'scenes.' We like playing to as many different types of people as possible, because no matter what, there's always going to be somebody bobbing their heads in the audience. Some metal kid could hear us and think we are the greatest thing since sliced bread. People who don't even know what 'electronic industrial music' is, younger people who were barely out of diapers in 1994, when 'industrial music' was a commonplace term. Dillinger and Andrew W.K. sure aren't industrial, but both bands have a lot of energy and incorporate the use of electronics, so that's about as good of a reason as we need to play with a band, as long as we aren't playing to Puddle of Mudd fans or something.

The self-produced/self-released Mutual Bonding Through Violation EP sold 1,200 copies and is now out of print. Are there any plans to re-release the EP in the future, perhaps with remixes or a remaster?

Payne: Maybe we will do a re-release of Mutual Bonding . But that would be in the very far future. A couple of the songs were completely re-done for Transhuman and we are much happier with those revisions. Mutual Bonding was a very fun experiment, our first ever time recording, mixing, mastering, etc. It shows, but it's still a fun little demo, very raw. It's like a couple kids took over a basement with computers and did the whole mixing job with a pair of blown speakers. Not that I am dissing the blown speakers thang, as many people seem to prefer it, for some reason or another. Perhaps it sounds more 'underground' that way. I hope people get the sarcasm. I don't wanna sound like a jerkoff. You can feel free to include that... and that... and that... and that... I cease with Family Guy quotes now.

Okay, Peter Griffin. How do you see the sound of Cyanotic progressing between the EP and Transhuman ? What conscious changes were made and how do you think will they reflect on future Cyanotic releases?

Payne: First of all, we knew a lot more about what we were doing. Mutual Bonding was just Drew and I tweaking sounds until everything was sounding as good as we could make it sound, which usually wasn't all that good. We really took our time with Transhuman, mostly with the mixing. There are a lot of layers to the songs, sometimes a whole lot of individual sounds playing at once, and it's difficult to mix everything so it's 100 percent clear sometimes, especially when you have guitars, which can just totally drown out all those little electronic elements that we would be tweaking for hours on end. Jason (Novak) of Acumen Nation/DJ? Acucrack and Chris (Cozort) from Iammynewt were both huge helpers in teaching us about mixing frequencies.

What are Jason and Chris like as producers, and how did you combine your production style with theirs? What problems or difficulties arose, and how did you overcome them? Would you (or are you going to) work with either of them again in the future?

Payne: Chris was the original co-producer. All the initial mixes were done with Chris, me exporting the tracks in Indiana and Chris mixing in North Carolina . It's funny, as we have been friends for so long and have done so much together, but have never actually met. Jason came aboard after I thought the mixes from Chris and I could use a little more finesse. Basically, the guitars were too loud at that point. Earlier Acumen Nation really strikes a great balance between electronics and guitars, so I thought it would be great to borrow Jason's ears, and sure enough, we came away with a record that was sounding much more the way I was originally hoping for. And yes, we definitely plan on working with both producers again. It took a while, and I still wish a few things were different in a couple songs, but overall, I am really happy with how the production came out.

Cyanotic has also been involved in covers and remixes for Chemlab and 16Volt. What is the process like going into a remix of a band as established and well known as them? Does it ever make you nervous? How does a remix compare to writing and recording your own material?

Payne: The Chemlab remix: that was interesting. We got the files from FJ Desanto, who was a big fan of the Mutual Bonding demo that Jason Novak had sent him. FJ knew we were big fans of Chemlab. We sat on that remix forever. I felt like a jerk, because we were looking so forward to doing remixes for both Acumen Nation and Chemlab, but didn't do anything with them until the very last possible deadline. Both of those remixes were done in about a week, which is a much shorter process than writing our own material. Remixes are fun, because you have an existing structure to work with, so it's more a question of us just being able to inject our sound into the tracks. Jared was a really big fan of the Chemlab remix. I guess it's the second track on the new CD that's coming out, so that was awesome news to us, especially considering we didn't think we were able to mangle his song as much as we were originally wanting.

What about Cyanotic remixes? Are there any plans to release any sort of remix album, single, or EP for Transhuman ?

Payne: Actually, that's what we are going to be starting really soon, recording some new material and getting some remixes together for a companion CD to Transhuman. We have a bunch of new ideas we are working with, so we plan on including at least an EP worth of totally new material, along with remixes from a couple bands we have wanted to work with for a while now, and maybe a few re-interpretations, demos, or live tracks. Basically, we are setting out to make a real companion CD and not just release a bunch of remixes that really don't sound all that different like a lot of bands seem to do. We are hoping to get that out by summer 2006 and then do a big tour in support of both albums. Transhuman and Posthuman.

Through your association with the CrackNation crew, as well as Chemlab and 16Volt, it's probably fair to say the coldwave scene has a big influence on Cyanotic's music. What other influences do you feel come into play? How do you feel you represent these influences in your music?

Payne: The mid-90s industrial rock scene definitely had a big influence on us, but so does dark drum 'n' bass, gangsta rap, film scores, even some metal. We just look at Cyanotic as our big musical dumping ground for experimenting with incorporating different styles with electronic industrial music, like what the earlier WaxTrax! artists like Meat Beat Manifesto were doing, mixing all these electronic sounds into a big melting pot.

Anything you'd like to add to finish up?

Payne: Oh, please mention this big tour we are doing in December with Acumen Nation and DJ? Acucrack. It's the CrackNation 10-Year Anniversary Tour.