Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Los Angeles, Pachyman is the kind of artist who finds it impossible to stay in one lane.
Whether it be fusing unusual genres, like reggae, jazz, post-punk and breakbeat, or playing all kinds of instruments, Pachi Garcia, the musician and record producer behind the moniker, is constantly testing out something new.
His musical journey began in high school, back in Puerto Rico. “I started with guitar, but I kind of fizzled away from guitar for a bit because I thought it wasn’t for me,” he says.
Check out our gig guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
Falling in with the music crowd, he began playing bass and keyboards in an assortment of reggae and rock bands. His horizons were expanded with an ambient improv project, before life took him to Los Angeles.
“I left around 2012 to Los Angeles, just to pursue more music. My girlfriend at the time, that’s my wife now, she moved over there to study art, so I just kind of followed her out there,” he says.
“That’s when I started playing drums. I didn’t know any drummers. Me and my bandmate at the time were trying to look for a drummer and I was like, ‘I could just, like, try to learn how to play drums. We could start a joke band, a band just to kind of get our motor going again,'” he tells me. It turned out to be some joke: that band – a synth-punky, 60s garage rock number – went on to tour for six years.
Finally came Pachyman, his current project and the one he’ll be bringing down to Brunswick Music Festival for an unmissable show at Howler on March 7.
“When I started the project, I did a lot of recordings that were kind of mimicking the sound of early Jamaican records from ’72 to ’82 and it was mostly instrumental,” he says.
“I grew up listening to a bunch of those dub projects, like King Tubby and The Scientists and all that stuff, but I also was a big prog head. I love all these kraut rock and Michael Rother and all these different bands… I feel like instrumental music was just where I fit the most when I was making music.”
His genre has then evolved to include elements of jazz fusion, breakbeat and even post punk. This gives his music an organic, live feel while still incorporating the experimental, electronic layers his studio work is known for.
“As I’m becoming my own person in this and trying to figure out my own sound, I’ve tried to infuse a bit of jazz, and even post-punk elements,” he reflects. His music style is undeniably reggae, though, a genre he says is “ingrained in your genes” if you’re from the Caribbean.
His upcoming release Another Place, which makes its debut on May 23, mixes these genres with ease, creating a darker, more visceral sound compared to his other work. Here, he draws inspiration from the classics, with deep, resonant basslines, skanking rhythms and echoing, spacious reverb effects.
“I named the record Another Place because I just felt so far removed from where I started and from the project originally. I felt that I was lent away to another space and time, where it felt different. This is an evolution of my sound, for sure,” he says.
To accompany the album, he recently released Hard To Part, which he explains is “kind of like a love letter to Los Angeles”, paying homage to the city while also reflecting on the hard times that it has faced, particularly following the tragedies of the recent wildfires. He wanted to create a darker sound with this track, inspired by Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark era.
“It’s kind of about the difficulties of trying to leave somewhere, for better or worse, and how that comes into play in your daily life. And it was just a way to make a juxtaposition of running away from these places, but actually then ending up in the same place,” he says.
While the production style and instrumentation may be modern, the themes of his music are deeply rooted in the positive, uplifting messages typical of reggae and dub.
Ahead of his upcoming gig at Brunswick Music Festival, Pachyman is keen to be on this side of the world. One of the key features of a Pachyman performance is the live application of dub effects – echo, delay, reverb – applied in real-time to create a flowing, evolving soundscape.
“I also play keyboards, and I also sing a little bit, and hype up the crowd,” he says. Fans are advised to be ready for a big, vibey, sound-system driven show.
For tickets to see Pachyman live at Howler on March 7, head here.
