THUMP Mix: LIMIT, AKA L-Vis 1990 & Egyptrixx

As Egyptrixx and L-Vis 1990, respectively, David Psutka and James Connolly have had a hand in crafting some of the most wonderfully warped sounds that club music has to offer over the last few years. A little over half a decade ago the UK-based Connolly cofounded the Night Slugs imprint and has since made the label an outlet for any out-there club tracks both frantic and frigid. It's this label that led to the first connection between the pair, when Psutka released his Egyptrixx EP The Only Way Up on Night Slugs back in 2010.

Though they're now based in different countries (Psutka in Toronto and Connolly in New York after moving from London), they've mostly stuck together since. L-Vis and Egyptrixx would occasionally play shows together when they happened to be around each other, and Psutka's 2011 Night Slugs LP Bible Eyes, all reassembled shards of smashed club beats, became a guiding light for the releases that'd follow on Connolly's label. With records like that already out in the world, the pair soon had the freedom to go as weird as they wanted. Years later, after a chance occasion linking up in a New York studio while Psutka was on tour, they've finally started a collaborative project called LIMIT.

Early press suggested the duo's pulsing self-titled EP on Psutka's Halocline Trance label was the result of an attempt at making industrial techno, but even a goal as straightforward as that ended up distorted and jittery in the hands of producers so unpredictable. In celebration of that record, the pair made THUMP a mix that nods the vast variety of their interests—the brilliant solar flares of King Sunny Ade's acrobatic guitar work to Lorenzo Senni's pointillist trance revisions.

Stream the mix below, download it via WeTransfer, and read a conversation with Psutka about the mix and the pair's collaborations.

THUMP: How are we meant to enjoy the mix? What's the perfect setting?
David Psutka: Hiking, partying, hanging with someone special…whatever…no real right or wrong answer to this question.

Is synesthesia a real thing and if so, what color is this mix?
I believe in synesthesia and I think this is an incredibly colorful, synesthetic mix of music. Many vivid, bright colors.

Where did you record it? Was there anything informing the concept of it aside from the music the two of you make together?
We live in different countries so this was done back and forth via email. We mostly wanted to represent the ideas and feelings of the LIMIT material; energy, spontaneity, propulsion, euphoria, absolute light.

What's your favorite moment of the mix?
I'm not very good at "favorite"…the whole thing I guess haha?

What can you tell me about the roots of your record together? Obviously you've known each other for quite some time, what led to finally making a project together?
I had been in NYC for a show and we planned to hang out in the studio; James wanted to show me some new material and I brought some new pieces of gear I was touring with. We just kinda plugged it all in and like two hours later had a bunch of material. A few months later, we linked in Toronto and edited it into about 10 tracks. It was very quick and spontaneous and admittedly wasn't until kinda late in the process that we explicitly decided to do a record, which can be an interesting way to work.

Were there any stated goals for the music you'd make in collaboration? How did you want it to diverge from each of your solo bodies of work?
Honestly, we had most of it recorded before we even realized we were working on a record so the vibe was unconscious basically—we worked freely, mostly focusing on energy and repetition.

Was there a conscious effort to make something more dancefloor friendly?
The primary focus for us was repetition and energy—those were the only real guidelines - we wrote and recorded everything quickly and spontaneously…accidentally almost. The material on the mix mirrors the diversity of ideas and feelings in the record. Its drastic, positive and urgent like the LIMIT record.

If the record was made last year, I imagine you're already thinking about the future. What's to come for Limit as a collaborative endeavor?
We are both so busy with other projects and our labels that the challenge is really to find time to record more material—I think and hope the next time we're in the same city for a few days we'll do another record.

Tracklist:

1. 大村憲司 – "Inaudible"
2. Jon Hassell – "Chez Moire"
3. Koharu Kisaragi – "でぱーと"
4. 8ulentina – "Alevi Spiral"
5. Lorenzo Senni – "Pointillistic"
6. King Sunny Ade – "Asa O Le Pa Kuru Wole Gbeyele"
7. Santos Rodriguez – "Road to Rio"
8. Surgeon – "La Real"
9. Keith Fullerton Whitman – "High Zero Generator (excerpt)"
10. BURNED LIMIT INTERLUDE
11. Elizabethan Collar – "09"
12. Limit – "Limit#03"
13. Exploring Jezebel – "Since I am on a strict 500 calorie a day diet with extensive exercise and no alcohol, I have the shape of a petite little woman, and my wife has paid for breast implants and facial surgery to make me more acceptable."
14. Eric Martin – "Emergency (Steve Poindexter Re-Edit)"
15. Limit – "Limit#01"
16. Developer – "In Pure Form 25"
17. Female – "Disturbance pt.1"
18. Gemini – "Day Dreaming"
19. Massacooraman – "Lighterless"
20. Радость Моя – "Волчок"
21. Yoshio Ojima – "01"
22. Eleh – "Bright and Central as the Sun Itself"