North America is a psychadelic and electronic music project based in Brookyln, NY. Twin brothers Josh and Jesse Hasko apply their near psychic proclivities to create spatial and hauntingly psychedelic songs that embody and transcend typical genres. Inspired by the scorching desert landscape, altered states, and the nightmare of post-modern America, North America plays a tactile and hypnotic rock with chiaroscuro qualities in a world that is their own. Crystalline guitar lines and feverish drum beats synthesize into unpredictable territories, sometimes even to the brothers.
The brothers are currently working on their third album (due in late 2014) on a boat in Jamaica Bay, NY.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. We are twin brothers that have been working on our current project for about 5 years. Jesse plays drums and samplers and Josh plays guitar, samplers, keyboards, and vox. It’s a mostly instrumental project based on energy exchange and illuminating the light and darkness in our lives.
How long have you lived in New York and what brought you there? It’s a blurry history, we’ve been mostly nomadic for the past 15 years. We kept a home base in New Mexico for most of that, but recently moved it to New York maybe 2 years ago. Keeping things moving is a priority.
What kinds of things are influencing your music right now? In the past, we were greatly influenced by the desert of New Mexico and it’s vastness, the intense energy, and the thin veil between the spirit world and “our world.” There’s a great underground metal and noise scene there and that influence seeped in a little.
Now, living in Brooklyn, the vibe has changed considerably. Energetic shift, for sure. We just spent the last two months writing and playing on a houseboat in Far Rockaway. The ocean has replaced the desert and we are still processing what that environmental change is doing to the music. Playing on a boat that is constantly swaying with the water and being more effected by the tides has made things more fluid. The darkness still prevails.
What are some recent, upcoming or current projects you are working on? We are staying with it being just the two of us for now as North America, though collaboration is exciting for us. We recently joined our friends in New York to play in the Submerged Motherlands Orchestra for Swoon’s recent exhibit at The Brooklyn Museum.
What other musicians/bands are you interested in right now? We love Minneapolis bands, Fugitive and Anonymous Choir, tons of bands in Toronto: DOOMSQUAD, Petra Glynt, DAS RAD, Lee Paradise. And our super talented friends in Chicago, Pillars and Tongues
Who would you ideally like to collaborate with? We want to collaborate with all of our friends in a more permanent way. Being just the two of us, we are both working really hard to create our sound and do multiple things at once. It’s a dream to get a little help and new perspectives. We’ve got a super group in our brains.
What do you want a viewer to walk away with after hearing your music? We don’t want them to walk away.
What’s your absolute favorite place in the city/the world to be? Wherever we are at the moment. Every place has validity. We love it everywhere.
Can you share one of the best or worst reactions you have gotten as a result of your music? The bad ones don’t warrant repeating. We just like the high vibes. Anytime people dance is the best, especially children dancing ecstatically, I just worry that they don’t have earplugs.