VIRE

The first words that comes to your mind when you hear Inspiration, Passion, and Strength

Michelle Ferrari

Who are you? (Answer how you interpret this question)

I am a musician who writes and records songs. Making music consumes most of my waking life. With VIRE I’ve be able to interpret this music into a live setting with my drum kit and a looping sampler setup.

Why do you do what you do?

Creating and playing music is what gets me through the day. I do it because I enjoy it more than anything else.

When did you know this is what you wanted to do, and what events led you to choose it?

I’ve been playing in bands and making solo music in my bedroom for many, many years. I’ve been doing this since I was teen. At a certain point I realized no one would hear all of the solo stuff I’d recorded unless I figured out a way to perform it live. That led me into a long experimentation period of figuring out how to bring this music into a live setting.

Toughest thing you had to overcome to do what you do? And what/who helped you?

With regards to VIRE the toughest thing to overcome was the fear of performing on stage without fellow band mates. There’s no one else to rely on, there’s no one there to pick up the slack if you’re not playing well. The thing that helped me overcome that was just doing it. Forcing myself into performing alone and coming out the other side.

Has anyone/anything ever inspired you to become who you are (to follow your dreams)? Have you ever inspired anyone directly?

I have many inspirations; family, friends, musicians, filmmakers…I can’t say whether I’ve inspired anyone else directly.

One mistake that you made in your journey? How have you learnt from them?

Not having back up gear. Always have back up gear. Most of my musical gear relies on technology working properly. Sometimes, it fails to function correctly. This has happened to me, so I’ve learned to bring back up gear.

Upcoming projects? Plans/goal? (about anything, if you have any)

I just released a video for “Human Contact”. More tours are in the works as well as another single to be released in the coming months.

What advice would you give to other people? (Just about life in general - It could be about anything)

“Do want you love until it kills you” – variation on what Bukowski said



VIRE: Profile


Full name

Phil Wilson

Age

It’s just a numbers game.

Place of Birth? (city, country)

Kingsville, Ontario, Canada

Where you live now? (city, country)

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Origins (where parents are from)? (city, country)

Kingsville, Ontario, Canada

First Language?

English

What do you do? (Profession/Occupation)

Film Editing / Write, Record, Play Music

How long have you been doing it?

Many Years

Fav Song

Too many to list

Fav Musician/Vocal artist/Rapper/Singer

Nirvana, Fugazi, Battles, NIN, Justice, Bocelli, Dre, RZA, Tortoise…This could go on forever

Fav Movie

Too many to list

Fav Clothing brand

Value Village

Fav Visual artist/photographer/videographer/Dancer/choreographer

Yasumasa Morimura

Fav Sport to watch

Olympic Ping Pong

Fav Sport to play

Ping Pong - BabesNGents

Featured on YouTube Nation episode " PSY and Snoop Nurse a Hangover"
YouTube show that features the best videos on YouTube. - YouTube Nation

Via the use of some old-school gamer technology, Phil Wilson's VIRE project presents a pair of lovers in a digital time in the new video for "Human Contact."

Throughout the video for the buzzy, synth-and-drum-driven cut, we find two young adults gazing at computer monitors, dialling out directions and typing out commands on chunky keyboards in an effort to guide themselves, or rather their digital counterparts, throughout city streets and into each others arms. Wilson makes an appearance in the love tale too, but his goals seem to be more about attacking his drum kit and sampler pads than getting some action of his own.

You'll find the video for the track, which was released earlier this year on a two-song single, down below. - Exclaim!

Dystopian dance music on the verge of eroding into digital noise, also known as VIRE. Now imagine this chaos coming from a single musician, a live drummer playing all the beats and triggering all the samples in real time, surrounded by sweaty moving bodies.

VIRE began with a single idea, to create a live solo electronic drumming performance act. Phil Wilson, who after years of playing in indie rock bands, custom built drums to accommodate the idea, and incorporated a drum-triggering machine that pieces of the songs could be loaded into. Wilson then cues parts and sections live during performances.

His latest video takes you through what appears to be a psychology experiment where two people are in the same room taking a video game test in which they have to meet in the game. It’s a pretty cool concept.

Watch VIRE’s latest video for “Human Contact” now: - Digital Warble

'Human Contact' VIRE

In the past few years, there has been an explosion of bands and artists who don't necessarily consider themselves to be industrial acts, but certainly would have been labelled as such circa 1994. We're thinking about acts like Youth Code, Trust, Ritualz, Health, Salem, Death Grips. (You could even slot Grimes in this category, in her heavier moments.)

One-man band Vire is also part of this new line of not-industrial industrial musicians. On his new track "Human Contact," Vire's Phil Wilson combines pulsing percussion, moody synths and creepy vocal samples for something that wouldn't be out of place in a goth club DJ set, sandwiched between Front 242 and VNV Nation. - CBC Music

Do you like booming electronic music? VIRE is an artist to watch. He describes his niche on Facebook as Electro-Post-Punk-Noise-Dance. After years performing with indie rock groups, Phil Wilson wanted to try his hand at using a special combination drum set with a drum machine to create a DJ-like experience. It's a solo act with live drumming and electronic components.

Want to see his custom-built drum set up? Watch “Control You” on Vimeo. Warning: Epileptic users should use caution. There are some color-changing lights in the background of the video. It's mostly an electronic instrumental, but there are some spoken word sound bites. Through context, you realize that “Control You” is about obsession with technology.

“Human Contact” is his most recent music video release on Youtube. Gamers will love the concept for this video. You are taken to a clinical environment with white walls. A man and a woman appear with virtual reality video game equipment and they are both delving into the realistic street views in the game. There's a chat room on the screen, too. They are supposed to find each other, all whilst hearing the basics of human contact: “touch me, hold me, taste me.” At the end of the simulation, you realize they were in the same room the entire time. Whether it's social commentary or supposed to be an experiment is unclear, but it is thought-provoking nonetheless. - Examiner.com

We premiere Canadian electronic musician VIRE’s new video for “Human Contact”.

Canadian electronic artist VIRE began with a single idea, to create a live solo electronic drumming performance act. Phil Wilson, who after years of playing in indie rock bands, custom built drums to accommodate the idea, and incorporated a drum-triggering machine that pieces of the songs could be loaded into. Wilson then cues parts and sections live during performances.

His latest single, “Human Contact”, has an old-school ’90s electronic feel to it, but it’s the video where you see Wilson drumming like a madman that’s most impressive. In addition to his drumming finesse on display, the video for “Human Contact” takes you through what appears to be a psychology experiment where two people are in the same room taking a video game test where they have to meet in the game. Watch it below.

http://youtu.be/m42wNQRKCZM - Earbuddy

VIRE
When: May 7, 11 p.m.
Where: Painted Lady (218 Ossington Avenue)

Noisy, distorted, and just a little disturbing, yet also really, really danceable, VIRE is probably one of the more interesting electronic acts of the festival. His burst-of-white-noise percussion, dark, lo-fi synths and disembodied vocals borrow equally from industrial music and ‘90s rave. - Torontoist

Phil Wilson makes up one half of the Toronto rock duo Mad Ones, but he also has a solo project called VIRE, which has just unleashed a new two-song single.

The single begins with "Control You," which is a raw electronic track that pairs aggressive electronic beats with circuit-fried tones and technology-oriented spoken samples. "Human Contact" employs a similarly jarring sonic palette while being slightly more straightforward and melodic in its danceable urgency.

Hear the songs below, along with a performance video for "Control You," which shows us Wilson triggering effects on a sample pad while holding down the beat. - Exclaim!

At once bleak and unique, Phil Wilson's VIRE is back with another dystopian dance anthem. The song, called "Mirroring," arrives with a new music video.

The clip is a strange pastiche of late-night roads, dancers and rushing water, all superimposed with colourful footage of a live drummer. It's a decent looking video, to say the least, but mostly because it puts all of the focus on the bouncy, rhythmic dance track.

Check out the video for "Mirroring" below. The song will appear on a new cassette single, due from Red Red Tapes on September 2. VIRE will also play Toronto's Nocturne on September 5. - Exclaim!

Phil Wilson o, lo que es lo mismo, VIRE, está de vuelta. Lo hace con el videoclip de Mirroring, el mismo que sirve para encarar la cuenta atrás de su nuevo lanzamiento, que llegará en formato cassette el próximo 2 de septiembre vía RED RED TAPES. Con fecha de estreno en Canadá -actuará en Montreal el próximo 5 de septiembre-, el autor canadiense VIRE reaparece con un vídeo de corte lo-fi, presentando un tema definido en las notas promocionales como “oscuro y melancólico“.

Junto a Mirroring VIRE ha presentado además Saddest fraction, presente en la cara B del single en cassette que presentará en septiembre. Los dos temas forman el grueso del lanzmaiento, que contará además con una versión de JOY DIVISION. El tema escogido para la versión es Love will tear apart us, con el que pondrá la guinda final a un lanzamiento que, visto lo visto, apunta expectativas elevadas.

Hasta la fecha VIRE había presentado el tema Human contact, con el que logró una cálida acogida, llevando a cabo sus primeros conciertos en plazas como Ontario y Quebec, antes de ultimar la salida de este primer lanzamiento en formato físico. - Shook Down

You may find it contradictory that an electronic-based, apocalyptic post-punk EP is called Human Contact, but in the case of VIRE, it all makes perfect sense. You see, VIRE’s music can only be made by human contact; he’s a live drummer playing all the beats and triggering the samples in the song in real-time. The result is a propulsive, kinetic performance, and some of the best dance music I’ve heard in ages.

The six-song Human Contact EP will be available from VIRE’s Bandcamp store on February 10, and combines his two pervious cassette-single releases (“Control You” / “Human Contact” and “Mirroring” / Saddest Fraction”) with previously unreleased tracks “One Age Youth” and “Parcels Go”. - Quick Before It Melts

The most catchy and accessible tunes to come out of the dark, industrial genre in a while. This amazing one-man-band literally built his own electronic drum kit, by repurposing and remixing an existing acoustic kit, and refitting it with trigger pads, sample units, and whole set of real, acoustic cymbals for extra bite. What results is a project that sounds amazing, but is also killer fun to watch - his kit outfitted with lights, his stage soaked in projected visuals, with both the former and the latter responding to every glitch, twitch, thump and bang of his songs.

All these songs are fantastic, but "Control You" is particularly catchy: the intro's wavering, pitchy bass, paired with distorted bleeps and blips, will suck you in right before he drops the drums in a big way. These feel like theme songs for busted robots - or, as we become increasingly attached to our devices, maybe they're songs for our own broken, bionic selves. Listen below, or pick it up here. - We Fucking Love Music

I love music. Probably a good thing, even a requirement, for someone who edits a music site. But I’m not always as excited about music, especially new music, as I remember being at one time. And that’s kind of sad.

One way of interpreting what’s going on here is that there’s just too much music, metal included, as critic/scholar Keith Kahn-Harris has suggested: “The ease of finding what was once obscure takes away the pleasures of anticipation, of discovery, of searching things out.”

A jaded ear also seems like an inevitable result of age. When you’re just beginning to discover music for yourself and to discover new kinds of music that differ from the music that saturates the environment around you — well, there’s just so much you haven’t heard yet that’s it’s a helluva lot easier for a song, a band, an album, to strike you as new or fresh. A few decades of near-constant music consumption can have the opposite effect, making every new release seem like just more of the same.

Every once in a while though, I’m still able to feel music in a way that reinvokes all the passion, and the memory of the last time always helps keep me going, anticipating the next moment when something will catch me off guard or resonate with my ears, brain and the rest of my body on just the right frequency.

It happened a couple of weeks ago at the Baltimore House in Hamilton. It helps that I like the decor (ornate gothic plus industrial neon? oh, yes). The company and the drinks were good. And though the first band up didn’t sound new, their nostalgia came across as more heartfelt than superficial or ironic, and we enjoyed the sound.

Then Toronto’s VIRE took the stage – one guy and his drum kit, some programmed tube lighting and electronic… accompaniment? I’m not sure I’ve ever described music as accompanying a percussion performance before, but that’s really the way I experienced VIRE’s set. It was dancey industrial, including a revamped version or adaptation of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” But it wasn’t the sound so much as the musical and visceral excitement that made the set so striking and memorable. - Hell Bound