Cornell-hailing punk band Sonic Reducers tap into a vibrant and genuine art form in a DIY fashion.
The weather outside is far too warm for an autumn day. Sonic Reducers begin appearing on my screen, smiling. Everyone appears to be in the serene moods. It may be virtual and my glimpses of body language are terribly limited, but the aura radiating from Sonic Reducers casts a comfortable feeling into the air. Their music is punk yet not riotous; their sound sits in an eclipse of punk and indie fuzz rock. The chillness of Sonic Reducers is warm, welcoming, and the delegation of answering questions is natural. No one appears hindered by the influences of any great city. Floating in cyberspace now, we delve into the intricacies of the band. A mere year-and-a-half-old, Sonic Reducers have a full-length out, and it’s self-titled.
Ayta Mandzhieva, a junior architecture student and native Russian, began dreaming of forming a punk band after she had read Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief in Russian. One of the main characters mentioned Green Day, she googled the moniker, and shortly thereafter began learning guitar. Somehow it was her first time telling this story as her bandmates replied in wonderment that they had never known the genesis of her musical passions. During the Cornell Orientation Week (the first week before school for freshmen to mingle and acclimate), Ayta met her future bandmate and drummer Jackson Rauch at a collegetown party. They dove into a conversation about music and agreed to play together, getting ideas flowing already. Since Orientation Week brims with activities, all four members found themselves at the same event.
Luke Slomba, the lead singer and guitarist, arrived a half-hour late to a half-hour long radio open house and serendipitously met Ayta and Sebastian at the Cornell radio station. The inevitable freshman mistakes and college radio encounters all follow in the jagged way that punk kids meet. Luke recognized Ayta as she was in the same architecture major, and introduced her to his roommate and future bassist of Sonic Reducers, Sebastian Fernandez.
Ayta casually mentioned to Luke that she was in a band to which Luke replied “That’s so cool! I could show up if you have a practice or something!”
At the heart of punk is a keen messy candor. Add college students to the mix and you end up with frazzled and genuine art. They also carry a quirky performing history, with the guitar and bass player shotgunning La Croix seltzers throughout the intro of their song return to ithaca. The half-wild nature of Sonic Reducers manifested naturally, a bunch of passionate college students existing creatively together.
Their first practice occurred at Cornell’s program housing dorm called Just About Music, JAM for short. Afterwards, the unnamed quartet sat at a table in the dining hall, pining over name ideas. There happens to be an extraordinarily compelling class (to me) offered at Cornell – during Ayta’s freshman fall, she enrolled in MUSIC 2006: Punk Culture: The Aesthetics and Politics of Refusal. She suggested the title of the Dead Boys song, Sonic Reducers. Sebastian clarifies today that the name is sort of a joke, prodding at the comments they receive about being a Sonic Youth pastiche. Jackson expresses a different sentiment of the name, calling Dead Boys a huge inspiration. Sonic Reducers explain that they aren’t actually Sonic Youth fanatics, remaining unfamiliar with their greater work. Teen Age Riot is a cool song though, Sebastian concedes. Luke’s father held nothing back in telling him that their song everything i hate about american cities sounds exactly like Kool Thing. Though maybe it’s better to be compared to Sonic Youth’s second most famous single than a Blink-182 cover band.
Sonic Reducers’ influences are a mix of rock sub-genres, melting together into the shape of their sound. Jackson’s drumming history is a colorful one that permeates the Sonic Reducers’ sound. As a fan of reggae, he borrows reggae drumming patterns and places them in a punk context. Having also played blues rock in high school, he affirms that his favorite music is old-school punk. Ayta japes, “What about Brand New?” He stands up to show his shirt, blushing in embarrassment because of the singer’s scandal. Known today as “cancelled,” Jackson claims he doesn’t want to give them a platform, but Sebastian interjects with more banter, “Yeah just wear their sweatshirt!”
Sebastian confesses, albeit with pride, that he began learning the bass after agreeing to be a member of Sonic Reducers. He crafted the basslines for the debut album first on MIDI, almost as one composes music, and then purchased a bass over winter break 2018 to learn it on the instrument itself. The prominent, melodic bassline of Is This It? by The Strokes is his primordial inspiration for writing.
Luke Slomba stands as the main songwriter although each member adds to the sound. One song from his high school demo archive, cool hair, is on the record. Once a drum-machine and acoustic guitar diaristic indie song, now a ska-punk dynamic, throttling banger. The reworked final version combines Jackson’s eclectic drum style with the punk influences of Ayta. The combination of sounds and ideas shows the DIY harmony of Sonic Reducers. Luke did not name each song that was a demo of his, but expressed his wonderment with how the songs effloresced when they were revisited and recrafted.
The do-it-yourself atmosphere of Sonic Reducers coalesced through the recording process. The music program housing had several spaces for practicing and recording, however, time was precious and often, rooms were full of other students ribboning together their own creative endeavors. Once Sonic Reducers realized that they had a catalog of tunes, the next step was to begin recording the album. Some vocals were recorded in unorthodox spaces, such as those for supermarket, recorded at a desk in a tiny dorm room. Free time for Cornell students is sparse during the semester, so Jackson and Luke crafted a system of quick-learning. Luke would have an idea recorded from a drum machine, play it for Jackson, and after five minutes of listening they’d record takes for about an hour.
“We’d mic the drums, press record, put a metronome in, and record a song” Jackson and Luke detailed the simple process of drum recording, but perhaps the swiftness of learning relates to Jackson’s immense talent. Usually Luke would mic all of the instruments and record, but Sebastian took to the computer to produce and mix the record.
The recording process was wildly rushed, Luke joking that he didn’t really know why they were so adamant about mixing it by a particular date. They speak about this frenetic, frazzled time period with chuckles, Sebastian nonchalantly saying that he mixed the entire album for eight hours straight on a random Friday, not knowing anything that he was doing. I asked him how the experience felt, and he responded ironically with “I was just pretty tired after it.” There is a small jovial note at the bottom of their bandcamp page that reveals it was uploaded at exactly 3:22 A.M. The ungodly yet fairly normal hour for college students adds to the punk clumsiness and charm. Everyone agrees that the rushed mixing process gave the record a distinctive sound.
After the release of their self-titled debut album, Sonic Reducers played as many open-mics as they could. All of their eyes glow when Ayta mentions the Watermargin show of September 2019. At this performance lies the heart of Sonic Reducers lore; the candid, quirky, laid-back, fun vibe that radiates into the crowd. The cyber-chatter begins to overlap as each member jubilantly tells the story. This performance is luckily immortalized on Youtube, quickly discovered by searching Sonic Reducers Cornell. The video is recorded from a nearly front-row perspective, very close to the band. Everyone glistens with sweat, strumming with passion. The intimate camera angle never dips away to show the crowd, but the closeness makes you feel like you’re right there. About 11 minutes in is what the band calls their “legendary” moment: the La Croix supernova. Luke announces “now comes a special moment in our set.” Jackson brandishes the cans to the crowd well above his head and shouts jovially,“This concert is endorsed by La Croix! Zero calories!” The moment the cans pop and burst, Luke begins the intro to return to ithaca. Sebastian and Jackson toss the cans and join in. The timing is immaculate. Shotgunning seltzer and singing about the cold winter of Ithaca at a co-op on campus is a quintessential Sonic Reducers moment. It may have been their only full-band show, but it serves as inspiration for the upcoming shows once the world is not in a seemingly never-ending pandemic. Over this cloudy time they’ve done acoustic sets over Instagram live. The tantalizing, invigorating magic of live shows is a ways away, but Sonic Reducers continue to write punk songs that they wish to perform someday. The band admits that communication relating to the band has lessened over the past few months, even Sebastian joking “Wow we’re so good at being a band!”
Everyone has creative ideas brewing even though they haven’t met together in a while. Ayta actually announced an idea she hadn’t told the other members yet. An EP, tentatively titled 4D is a concept for four songs in the guitar tuning Drop D, a common tuning for punk and grunge music. Her bandmates are excited about this, mentioning ideas of including a cover they’ve done of a Pavement song. It may be a triumph to get all of Sonic Reducers in a room together, but once they convene, punk magic occurs. The future is vast and welcoming to their passions, and so they will create and blossom.