Born out of a chance meeting, New York City-based experimental rock trio Paint the Sky (PTS) was formed in February 2022 by Megan Dyer (vocals, synthesizers), Josh Carothers (drums) and Reynard LoKi (drums).

 

Dyer and LoKi are both visual artists and climate defenders. Dyer, whose work reframes portraiture using a system that combines data and what John Cage referred to as “Chance Operation,” focuses on connecting people to each other and to the planet. She also a climate activist with Mothers Out Front, fighting against fracked gas development and lobbying for laws in NY State that are in line with the Climate Law CLCPA that sets climate goals. Dyer worked for Sol LeWitt for 10 years, during which time, LeWitt became a close friend and mentor. Dyer and LeWitt also shared a love of music which dominated most of their conversations.

 

In his conceptual-based visual work, LoKi investigates ontology, language, semiotics and institutional critique. He is also a member of MomenTech, an international art collective and experimental production studio founded in 2010 that creates “bespoke art-based solutions for curators,” producing over thirty projects around the world. LoKi is also an environmental journalist and writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute. A multi-instrumentalist and solo musical artist, LoKi is the bassist and guitarist for Mild Panning, and released his first solo album, Unreal, on Clearly Records in 2021.

 

Carothers, who is also a music producer and sound engineer, also leads the alien skate rock trio Chilton, which released Little Birds on Dead Broke Records in 2019. He is also the drummer and co-songwriter in the alt-pop trio QMARK, which he co-founded in Indonesia in 1991. Carothers’ previous bands include Earworms, I Farm, The Last Mile, Nulophyte, Man without Plan, Mini Crush, New Mark. Carothers and LoKi are also in the improv noise rock duo/channel Mild Panning, which they formed in 2020.

 

A primary modus operandi for PTS is to start the creative process with Dyer’s “biographs” (data) for lyrics and structure, and then musically expand on the idea of chance using improvisation, except for accessing some elements of synesthesia when there are paintings already made. Colors can be accessed and drawn to exact notes for a framework. Two drummers allows for the exploration of polyrhythms that react to and engage with Dyer’s incantations and abstract, minimalist synthesizer work to create at raw trashy haze that threads together variant strands of musical and artistic DNA, from Krautrock and Proto-punk, to No Wave and Conceptual Art.

 

For their forthcoming debut work, “ALLONE,” PTS used the conceptual artist Sol LeWitt’s 1968 work “Sentences on Conceptual Art,” using each sentence as a prompt to create a 36-song cycle that will be mastered at the legendary Blasting Room (The Descendents, Black Flag, Anti-Flag, Rise Against) in Fort Collins, Colorado, and will be pressed into a 4-LP limited edition vinyl set that includes a book featuring Dyer’s visual work.

 

PTS’s performance model is playing "in-the-round," from inside a 4-walled, or circular, transparent white scrim with a 4-channel video projection of flowing rivers projected on the scrim and across their bodies inside; they are all wearing white, so their forms blend into the projected images.

 

Dyer’s art seeks to connect people to each other and to the planet through a process-oriented investigation. PTS expands on Dyer’s work: Like a hologram or fractal, each piece contains the exact same information as the whole. The micro is the macro. The water videos in Dyer’s work—which are projected onto the band, appearing as holograms during live performances—a single drop of water contains the data of the entire ocean.

 

We are all connected,

We are all one.

One with each other,

One with the planet,

Together, we can paint the sky.

 

 

For more information, contact painttheskyallone@gmail.com