The Oxford-based electronic band Junk Culture is on the bill with Girl Talk for Mississippi State University’s Oct. 8 fall concert.
The band’s primary member is Oxford-native Deepak Mantena, who graduated from the University of Mississippi this year with a computer science degree.
Mantena has been playing music since he was 14 or 15 and put out two records by himself under the name, Drum Loop but felt the path he was heading down needed a new name to go with it.
“I got kind of sick of the Drum Loop name and all this new material I was making didn’t really seem to fit in with the style of the old stuff I was doing – it was like folk/rock/indie/electronica/acoustica, just really different sounding stuff,” he said.
Mantena formed Junk Culture in the fall of 2008 using his vast library of samples, ranging from music from old vinyls to the white noise of a bar to make tracks.
“I collect samples of stuff from anything – it can be a song playing on my friend’s radio or just environmental sounds I heard walking on the street” he said. “I even record myself playing the guitar or other instruments. I might play a guitar riff I want to record really quickly and then it comes down to once I have those I can start manipulating them with electronics or computers to make them sound completely different or to take on a different characteristic.”
Even before Mantena fully decided on his band’s name, he had recorded the first track on his album with no intentions of getting a record deal.
He finally decided on the name Junk Culture, based on an album from one of his favorite bands.
“I was just looking through my record collection one day and found this one record by Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark and the name of their record was Junk Culture, and I was like ‘hey that sounds awesome, that’s going to be the name of my band’,” he said.
Since Junk Culture formed, Mantena has acquired an entire library of recordings.
“I guess Junk Culture came out of those recordings,” he said. “Once I have [the sounds], then I manipulate them with electronics to sound either completely different or just to take on a new kind of characteristic.”
At the concert, Junk Culture will be playing music from its debut album, West Coast, coming out Oct. 27 under Illegal Art records.
Although the album’s title pays homage to Mantena’s favorite part of the country, there are still ties to Mississippi with the album’s cover art being designed by MSU graphic design graduate Will Bryant.
Though Mantena recorded the album by himself, when he performs live, he sings and mixes alongside his younger brother, Nitin Mantena, a current Senior pharmaceutical major at Ole Miss, who plays the drums with synchronized visuals.
“I really dig the music, and I’m really glad to be supporting him and playing with him live,” Nitin said.
After sending his music into only one music label, he was able to get a record deal in April.
In January, after recording a handful of songs he was happy with, Deepak sent his recorded material to Illegal Art, the same label one of his favorite bands, Oh Astro, and the fall concert bill-sharing artist Girl Talk, are on.
“[Illegal Art] is really the only label I sent my material over to because I really wanted to be on that label,” he said. “And a few weeks later I heard back and the guy who runs the label was interested, so we kept in touch, and I kept recording stuff and eventually I signed with them.”
In addition to the excitement of the upcoming album, Junk Culture also has selection of shows in the northwest part of the country to look forward this month.
Junk Culture has never played for a crowd as large as the 7,000-plus people expected to be at the fall concert.
“Up to this point, we haven’t played a show that big, and I’m excited for people to hear the music,” Nitin said.
Last summer he began playing with the band at venues in Chicago, St. Louis and Ohio City while touring across the across the Midwest.
“With everything I came up with I tried to compliment the stuff he’s playing,” Nitin said.
In September, Junk Culture will perform a total of four shows with Girl Talk – two in Seattle, Washington, on the 18th and 21st and two in Vancouver on the 19th and 20th.
And while Deepak is looking forward to playing on the West Coast, he is especially excited to play in his home state so friends can make the trip.
“I knew I was going to be playing those shows with Girl Talk in September, and I just thought it so serendipitous and funny that somebody asked me to play this other one with him in October, and added on top of that, it was in my home state of Mississippi,” he said.