It's 2005 in Philadelphia. We are introduced to The Gang in the first season of It's always sunny in PhiladelphiaThe Eagles are on their way to a Super Bowl and the war between Pat's and Geno's for the “best cheesesteak” is still raging.
Twelve-year-old Jesse Kardon watches videos alone in his dark bedroom, absorbed in the metaphysical ideologies of Carl Sagan, Michio Kaku, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. A couple of years later, marijuana unlocks everything.
“I have vivid memories of lying awake in bed when I was 14 high after secretly smoking out my bathroom window, thinking, 'If I can think hard enough, I'll be able to picture space in my head.'” fourth dimension '” says Kardon. “And I never could, but I've always been fascinated by: the answers to 'What is reality? What is existence?'”
It's been almost two decades and he's now headlining the world's biggest electronic music festivals as dubstep superstar Subtronics. We're in her kaleidoscopic music studio located inside her rustic home in rural Pennsylvania, chatting about her long-awaited second album. TESSERACT.
Jason Heffler/EDM.com
Kardon paints a picture of a precipitous fall into the abyss of a new era of his art with the ambitious album, which he says “fully represents [his] personality.” His sonic portal? The tesseract, a “hypercube” concept in which each side pulls back and reveals not the void, but another cube, identical but infinitely different.
Think of the tesseract as a secret room hidden inside a normal room. You can look through the keyhole and see glimpses of the larger space within (swirling colors, shifting shapes) but never actually enter. It's reminiscent of Subtronics' music, always morphing as you try to pin it down.
As in Dalí's melting clocks, time becomes irrelevant in TESSERACT. True to the limitless nature of his namesake, the crux of the album is Kardon's quest for artistic growth in a world he believes is not bound by the conventions of dimension theory.
In those parallel universes, who knows the limits of Kardon's contrarian approach to music production? TESSERACT It is his attempt to close the cosmic gap.
“I love heavy dubstep and bangers, but I also love a lot of other things,” says Kardon, who has a tesseract tattooed on his forearm. “So I feel like if I only release hit songs, they don't represent me as accurately because there's a lot more to my art than that. I feel really obligated and partially responsible to share the full spectrum.” of what I'm really trying to do and who I am.
Despite the esoteric construction, you don't have to be a scientist to appreciate the mind-blowing implications of the higher dimensions. In fact, electronic music production and quantum physics have more in common than you think: musicians weave many different layers of unique sounds to produce a song, while physicists entwine molecules to explore the fundamental properties of matter, both demonstrating the interconnection of seemingly disparate parts.
Kardon doesn't shy away from the philosophical vertigo of the concept, but instead embraces it, weaving his signature sound with threads of wonder and unease. For example, he says that the song “Omnidirectional” is what he imagines a black hole would sound like and “Quantum Queso” is similar to waves in the fabric of space-time. “Asteroid” is self-explanatory.
After their debut album explored the geometric concept of fractals, the tesseract is Subtronics' newest vehicle for world-building as it attempts to capture and bottle the sounds of those unfathomable phenomena. He says that he is deeply inspired by Porter Robinson, whose albums he calls “universes to escape to.”
“I definitely have a desire to be a songwriter,” Kardon reflects as he pets his Keeshond puppy, Ellie. “I feel like the way to make lasting, impactful music is music that tells a story and really has sentimental weight.”
Uninhibited when discussing his obsession with science, Kardon makes it clear that he is still the same amazed child of 2005. His art today has an existential nature, rooted in the idea that bad faith is a suffocating mask and authenticity requires a confrontation with emptiness. He is vulnerable and even confusing at times, but he is undeniably honest and that is the beauty of him.
“I think it would be dishonest to make me do the same thing over and over again,” Kardon explains. “If I don't make art honestly, the art will suffer and everyone will be able to notice it. And if you're not passionate about what you're doing, it's very visible and it really translates.”
“As long as your intention isn't just to make money and be famous, there's no wrong way to do it,” he continues. “If you're making art that you're passionate about, you can't go wrong. I personally love making art that's just meant to provoke a response, and I love making art that's a story that I'm telling.”
Kardon feels much more authentic when writing albums, he says, because the longer format gives him a broader canvas to tell genuine stories rather than chasing the fleeting success of singles and DJ guns.
“Anything you can think of to do that other people aren't doing is a big W,” he says.
Ultimately, Kardon hopes his fans can listen TESSERACT and formulate your own story. After all, that's what makes the concept of higher dimensions so appealing: it gives us the opportunity to modify and co-author the script that tethers us to reality in ways we couldn't previously understand.
He is effusive when speaking of his adoration for the “Army of the Cyclops,” the name collectively adopted by his die-hard fan base. It is not lost on him the degree to which they have supported his growth.
“The fans pay my bills,” enthuses Kardon. “They are the reason I can live the life I have to live. I say it's like winning the lottery: I can literally live this life without words, beyond my wildest dreams, and I am so infinitely, indescribably full of gratitude. And it's 100% allowed by the fans. They did that. I get emotional thinking about how lucky I am.”
“Because, at the end of the day, we're not celebrities,” he continues. “We're nerds sitting at our desks, turning knobs.”
TESSERACT is out now on Kardon's own record label, Cyclops Recordings. You can listen to the album below and find it on streaming platforms. here.
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