When Kristian Hoszkiewicz of Wilton sets out on a cosmic soundwave exploration with his one-man band, PowerUp, it’s kind of like playing an adventure video game. As he makes his way through a set, he comes across obstacles, overcomes them, levels up and then brings things to a giant crescendo — a boss battle, if you will.
“Instead of establishing characters, you establish your synth sounds,” Hoszkiewicz said, “developing them through turmoil or positive entities, meeting new people. And I try to end every set with a big brash crescendo, where it comes to this big climax and then — BOOM! — there’s the big fight.”
This approach is fitting, as PowerUp’s music is primarily created using a Nintendo DS, a handheld gaming system with the ability to program and play synthesizer sounds.
Hoszkiewicz plays drums, too, and other traditional instruments, but once he got a taste of programming synth waves on the DS, he was hooked.
“You definitely don’t need to be good at video games to be good at making this kind of music but it definitely helps having a little bit of an imagination about what’s happening,” Hoszkiewicz said.
Hoszkiewicz grew up gaming, and those soundtracks, like Doom, Mario Brothers — “anything Mega Man is classic,” he said — stuck with him. But while the medium necessitates an 8-bit sound reminiscent of Nintendo music, the final product is something more like a noise-rock band.
“It’s very jarring uncomfortable sounds arranged in a very nice textural way,” Hoszkiewicz said, “and sometimes I just try to get the most bizarre sounds I can get out of a DS for the end of the show.”
Of course, the instrumental 8-bit noise rock milieu doesn’t allow for lyrics, but PowerUp still manages to channel and convey some raw emotion.
“It’s not telling people what it’s about and what they should be feeling and what they can relate to, it’s left to everyone else’s imagination on what they feel about what they’re listening to,” Hoszkiewicz said.
At first, Hoszkiewicz recorded songs as PowerUp, making a couple albums and performing the tracks live. He’d accompany some of the tracks with live drumming and put on a good show. But after a while, he found that the most rewarding performances were the ones where he went on a sonic adventure, entirely off-the-cuff, playing notes from the DS in an improvisational fashion. And his approach to that, true to form, is reminscent of a video game, too; you may be stuck in a box, but the tools are there to get you out of it.
“You kind of lock yourself in a room with a handful of cool things and it’s just a matter of how you entertain yourself with a handful of cool things to determine how bored you’re going to be,” Hoszkiewicz said.
To hear some of PowerUp’s music, visit tecnoise.bandcamp.com.
Arts Editor Ben Conant can be reached at 924-7172, ext. 226 or bconant@ledgertranscript.com.