Discover new Music Introducing: Paultra Violet

What started as an email chain of late night demos between actor/playwright, Joey Palestina (HBO's We Own This City) and composer, Spencer Miles (Space Fight) during the 2020 pandemic, soon became a project too thick to sleep in desktop files. As their songs grew limbs, the addition of producer/synth junkie Joel Hunter Martin (Y God Y) morphed Palestina's fragmented lyrics into melodic manic journal entries; the final panache that was needed to become the body known as: Paultra Violet. Now, with contributions from musicians across the globe, these coldwave/tech noir boys have released their first LP, "WE'VE ALREADY HAPPENED". 

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Artist q+A

Imagine: there has been some kind of government censorship on music and you’re only allowed to listen to five albums on repeat for the rest of your life. What albums are you taking with you until your dying moment?

Can we do seven–with two albums that swim to shore every so often.

Pet Sounds

In Rainbows

Innervisions 

Depression Cherry

Sgt. Peppers

Kind of Blue

OK Computer 

Bob Dylan famously said, about writing his music, that it “isn’t him” — something else took over entirely, like a trance, and when he snapped out of it, he had some of the most lyrically profound music in front of him; music that he had trouble taking credit for. What does songwriting look like to you? Is it reaching a transcendent flow-state, or is it a way simpler process?

It usually revolves around some type of casually-manic obsession and/or state of mind I’m swimming in (or drowning in). A clunky flow-state. There are surges within that, pockets of tunnel vision where the core of a project is built, but never am I stepping out of anything in the belief that what I’ve done is profound. More so a necessity for me to survive. To feel a sense of relief, perhaps. I’ve been creating for so long now within various mediums, that it all just feels like one endless mood board; a way for me to process questions that do not have answers. 

Our first LP, We’ve Already Happened was something I was proud of. Took us three years. Some of our fans may have resonated with the story I connected from track to track–a sort-of fragmented journal entry about love/lust/obsession through the guise of technology and connection.

That being said, not a simple process, more a clunky flow state.

Do other art mediums (i.e. painting, sculpture, film) inform how and why you make music? Who are some of your favorite artists outside of the art form of music?

Yes. The films I love affect my music-making, the music I love affects my playwriting, the plays/novels/poems I read affect both the music and the films I gravitate towards. It all informs each other–one big every-shifting mood board. 

Outside music: Charlie Kauffman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Dostoevsky, Richard Lewis, Larry David, Terry Gilliam, Sylvia Plath, Louise Gluck, John Fowles, Jim Harrison, John Cassevetes, Gina Rowlands…to name a few!

Is there someone in particular that has greatly inspired your current music taste? How have you carried this into your artistic expression?

My parents laid the foundation. Bowie. Beatles. Jazz. Steely Dan. Stevie Wonder. Friends have aided in this along the way. Artists also inspire my taste in music. My taste shapes my taste, if that makes sense. I wouldn’t have found Men I Trust without Beach House. I wouldn’t have found Boyz Noize without NIN. I wouldn’t really understand an artist like Tyler the Creator without David Bowie and Beck…which loops back to friends and family, I think. My friends turned me onto Beach House, to Radiohead, to Beck, etc.

You’ve been assigned aux for the spaceship ride to Paper Moon. What are you playing?

1. Golden Lady - Stevie Wonder

1. Climbing The Walls - Radiohead

2. Levitation - Beach House

3. Black Car - Beach House

4. I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times - Beach Boys

5. Wrapped Around Your Finger- The Police

6. Go Slowly - Radiohead

7. You Only Live Once- The Strokes

8. Broken Drum - Beck

9. Dogs - Pink Floyd

10. Blue in Green - Coltrane

11. Videotape- Radiohead

12. New Romance - Beach House

13. Numb - Men I Trust

14. Pierre- Men I Trust

15. The Adults Are Talking - The Strokes

16. Pull Up The Roots - Talking Heads

17. Life On Mars - Bowie

18. Sexy Sadie- The Beatles

19. Honestly I Always Knew- Paultra Violet

20. She’s Leaving Home - The Beatles

21. Golden Age- Beck

22. NY State Of Mind- Nas

23. Young Lion- Vampire Weekend

24. Weird Fishes - Radiohead

25. Time - Pink Floyd

26. Flutes - Hot Chip

27. The Soft Parade- The Doors

28. Space Song- Beach House

29. Day In The Life - The Beatles

30. Quicksand - Bowie

31. You Are My Face- Wilco

32. God Only Knows - Beach Boys

33. Do It Again - Steely Dan

34. Glow Up Wolf - Paultra Violet

35. When You Die - MGMT

36. Year Of Sweat - Paultra Violet

37. Conversation 16 - The National

38. Winter 05 - Ra Ra Riot

39. Capricorn - Vampire Weekend

40. All Is Fair In Love- Stevie Wonder

41. So Far Away - Carole King

42. Without You - Strawberry Guy

43. All The Candles - Men I Trust

44. (any Bach song)

45. (any Miles Davis song)

46. Panama - Van Halen