“There’s real feeling on PAINSYNC; real hurt.”
When we discovered PAINSYNC, the latest album from synthwave project Virtual Intelligence, we knew we had to feature one of its songs.
More importantly, we had to know more about the project itself. Enter Nikoletta Winters, the mastermind behind this sprawling, wild ride of an album. Where many synth artists rely solely on electronic instruments, you’ll find passionate guitar solos and more in the Virtual Intelligence palette. The fact that all of this sound was organized and crafted by one person is absolutely mind-boggling. On top of this, Nikoletta gives Virtual Intelligence its heartfelt voice — and gripping lyrics to match.
Darkness Calling was lucky enough to learn more about Virtual Intelligence and the making of PAINSYNC. Read on below.
DARKNESS CALLING: Thanks again for chatting with us! First, what can you tell newcomers about Virtual Intelligence in terms of its members and their roles, or simply the origins of the project?
NIKOLETTA WINTERS: Virtual Intelligence is a gothic cyberpunk themed project that was started in New England during the summer of 2010. I have always handled the bulk of the creative responsibilities for Virtual Intelligence. However, Virtual Intelligence was conceived as a two-piece, featuring myself and my best friend Aeryn. She was a member until 2015, when I moved to the Sonoran Desert. The logistics of organizing anything over long distances isn't easy. Truth be told, I really miss Aeryn's ear for "executive" producing. She has a lot of good instincts. I would like to include her again one day, but for now, it's just me.
The only other session member that's been involved with Virtual Intelligence was M. Apollonius, who recorded live drums for a couple of tracks on our second album Singularity Now: The Future Worlds of Yesterday. Eventually, I would like to have a full band, but we'll have to see what happens. For now, it's just me. I sing, play guitar, bass, and sequence via either FL Studio, Logic Pro X, or Ableton. It just depends on what I'm doing. I have been releasing music under the Virtual Intelligence moniker since May of 2012. My latest album is entitled PAINSYNC and was released on September 10th, 2020.
DARKNESS CALLING: We are featuring "Holographic Operative" on this week's playlist. What can you tell us about the production process for this song? It's such an epic track.
NIKOLETTA: I am so honored to be featured! Thank you so much. "Holographic Operative," like many of the songs on PAINSYNC, went through many different iterations before I came to the version that I chose to release. The original instrumental version of this song was written in March of 2019. It was a lot longer back then, and featured no guitars, vocals, or solos. Of course, that has all changed!
Almost all of the songs on PAINSYNC had completely different lyrics at one point, but I ended up rewriting them late last year, and continued to refine them as I recorded the vocal tracks in April of 2020. Guitars for "Holographic Operative" were also recorded in April of this year. Truth be told, I also threw out the original drum track on "Holographic Operative" sometime in July and completely redid it in order to make the song more dynamic. So far, that seems to have been a good choice as most of the feedback I get for the album highlights this song in particular.
Lyrically, "Holographic Operative" has also changed a lot. Originally, it was supposed to be a song about driving fast, and I guess some of that is still in there, but for the most part, it's a very vengeful "you don't really know me" type of song. The chorus also gets into when I realized I was different (in childhood), as well as what it means to discover that life doesn’t go on forever. Figuring out some of life's hard truths at any age isn't something we can turn the clock back on. Once your eyes are open, once you are awake, there's no going back to sleep.
The guitar solo for “Holographic Operative” completely fell out of me. I had more trouble trying to figure out how I would situate the rhythm guitars in the other parts of the song. But the solo? Yeah, that one was done in like ten minutes. I’m no virtuoso, but I will say that writing solos is something I’ve gotten better at over the years. This one, in particular, is super fun to play. It jumps around between a more melodic vibe to bluesy sounding fifths, with a black-metal-styled accidental or two mixed in there. It’s probably my favorite guitar solo from the album, next to the solo at the bridge in “The Hurricanes of Saturn.”
“Figuring out some of life’s hard truths at any age isn’t something we can turn the clock back on. Once your eyes are open, once you are awake, there’s no going back to sleep.”
DARKNESS CALLING: You've mentioned that this album, PAINSYNC, represents the end of a personal journey. If it's not too painful or delicate to discuss, can you share some of that story with us?
NIKOLETTA: My original intention for PAINSYNC was to release it on the morning of September 10th, 2019, to coincide with my gender reassignment surgery — you know, just in case something freaky happened and I dropped dead on the operating table. At that time, all of the songs were already written, but I hadn't yet written the lyrics, guitars, or vocal parts. I released it exactly a year later on September 10th, 2020.
I'm glad that things went down the way they did, because in the months following my surgery, I had a series of complications that put me into a mental space that wasn't healthy. I had experienced some pretty rough internal wound separation that left me in pain for over six months. Chronic pain, especially constant chronic pain, is no joke. I empathize with anyone who has had to live through something like this. Seriously, pain like that, it's definitely not good for the body — but for the mind, it's even worse. All of the lyrics for PAINSYNC were written during this dark time, and I think that they really convey what I was going through. Had I released the album as I originally intended, I don't think it would've come out the same. There's real feeling on PAINSYNC; real hurt.
DARKNESS CALLING: Do you envision PAINSYNC as one story, so to speak, like a concept album? If so, is there a way for you to loosely describe the narrative of that, or is it more of a vague, internal concept that can't be put into words easily?
NIKOLETTA: PAINSYNC is more like a collection of feelings rather than a story-based concept album. There isn't any fantasy here, because I don't really need it. That's not to say I'm against that sort of writing; I love traditional concept albums, but this is just what felt correct for PAINSYNC. Life is very dystopian and cyberpunk as it is, so using that real-life "setting" as a backdrop for speaking my personal truth seemed like the right direction.
“Life is very dystopian and cyberpunk as it is, so using that real-life ‘setting’ as a backdrop for speaking my personal truth seemed like the right direction.”
DARKNESS CALLING: What's next for Virtual Intelligence? Do you have any videos, livesteams, or any other projects planned?
NIKOLETTA: Considering that I'm eight years into sticking with one project, the first thing I want to do is to continue to progress my sound. I have a lot of ideas. That said, now that PAINSYNC is finally out, I can focus on refining my creative process a bit more before I begin writing a follow-up to this album. I tend to think that I'm going to write something completely bananas and unexpected. As a guitar player first, part of me wants to branch out into using more physical instruments, but we'll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, I'm going to keep reading, keep networking, and keep supporting the Synthwave/Darksynth/Vaporwave/Gothwave scene that I love. There's so many wonderful voices producing music right now that it's hard to keep up.
As far as streaming, I actually just did a test stream this week where I was working on a song live. I stream games regularly, especially old stuff like original DOOM. I think a lot of my viewers just like to see me get punished. DOOM is good for that. Especially on Ultra-Violence and Nightmare. You can interface with me directly on Twitter and Twitch @chainspellstun. Virtual Intelligence is on Twitter @GothicElectric. I also write music reviews for retrowave and darker types of music. That site can be found at www.loveacrosslightyears.com.
Thank you so much for the interview!
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