ART & CULTURE
SONGS OF THE PSYENTISTS B Y D I A N A G O N Z E AU
P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F T H E P S Y E N T I S T S
An upside of this past year has been the ability to stay in and maybe let things get a little weird, wouldn’t you say? That seems to be the case for Psyentists, a genredefying musical duo of self-described psychedelic astronauts comprised of John Sargent Patterson and Jephirsun Danger, who have been in their respective labs and focused on leveling up. If you’re interested in the avant-garde, the experimental, jam sessions, visionary art, or you just want something to listen to while you do some mental traveling of your own, these are the guys for you. Jephirsun was born in Hyannis, Massachusetts and raised here in Maine, where he met John—or Sargent Dingo, if you prefer—a native Mainer hailing from Winterport. After taking a couple of classes together at NESCOM in Bangor, the two truly connected at the Germination Music Festival in Harmony in 2017. After spending the day running an art tent, Jephirsun had set his gear up and started playing a renegade set, which attracted Dingo’s attention, and they ended up making a lot of cool noise. That was the inception of the Psyentists. Their genesis at a music festival has served as a solid foundation for the music they create together, as did
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their shared curiosity when it comes to sound. They both cite a wide range of influences—punk, hip hop, EDM, jazz, lounge, dub reggae, techno, grime, trap. As Danger put it, “a musical stew that we create each time we get together. Never exactly the same thing twice.” They aim to have a little something for everyone, it seems, and welcome any attempts to genre them. We touched base via video chat so I could pick the brains of the mad scientists in their natural setting. How would you describe the music you create? DINGO: Psychedelic dub trap improv? Livetronica is a years-ago term. DANGER: Slash. Electrock. Someone’s even called it reggaestep. You don’t pick the genre, the genre picks you. DINGO: We’ll have a contest.Poll the crowd, winner gets to name our genre. DANGER: It’s a jumble juxtaposition, influenced by a wide variety of genres from growing up as 90s kids. We’re not writing it with any necessary intent, it’s so improv, we’ve never rehearsed a set. We have a few songs we’ve written that we both are familiar with that we’ll throw into the mix, but that’s the most we have as a rehearsal.
