![\"Photo](\"http:\/\/www.stylusmagazine.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-by-Avery-Stedman-AudioOpera-Press1-500x667.jpg\")
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By Mike Skwark<\/strong><\/p>\n I meet AudioOpera at a Salisbury House \u2018Xpress\u2019 near the University of Manitoba. He is dressed in a white and green coat with patches sewn on that look like they came from an ornate quilt, over a black t-shirt with a purple dragon on it. He posits his purple cotton pants once belonged to a “dead grandmother,” and his taupe New Balance velcro sneakers are the type you might find on an early morning mall walker. <\/span><\/p>\n His shoulder-length black hair\u2014or rather, long in the back, straight bangs across the front\u2014coupled with a fairly thick beard makes him look like a cross between a friar and a wizard. He looks as likely to laugh at some LARPing as he does to participate in it. His music sounds like it was produced by a techno-magic aficionado, starring in a film directed by the same guy as \u201cNapoleon Dynamite.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n “The Xpress really gets the grease,” he says, ordering a double cheese nip with fries and substituting the coleslaw out for gravy (it is noon). “They know how to do salt.” <\/span><\/p>\n Salt is one of AudioOpera\u2019s true loves. He jokes that he\u2019ll be joining the 27 Club (a group of musicians who all died at age 27) due to his status as a \u201csalt connoisseur.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere are some who question the salt, but they simply cannot handle it,\u201d he scoffs. \u201cMortals.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n AudioOpera is a very funny guy. His jokes are delivered so deadpan that they could be easily missed if you\u2019re not in on them. His minor actions have the same light comic slant to them\u2014when he gets his drink from the self-serve fountain he makes swamp water by alternating between a spritz of Pepsi and a spritz of Dr. Pepper. He does not call attention to these actions in any way other than doing them. He sometimes refers to the general public as \u2018mortals\u2019, but in a way that is more comedic than condescending. He seems to be at once completely cognizant of his surroundings and has no trouble expressing himself, but he also does not seem to be completely comfortable\u2014like he <\/span>should<\/span><\/i> have wandering eyes, but doesn\u2019t. <\/span><\/p>\n When I ask if he has any shows coming up he laughs. \u201cThe last time I played here was in the summer, so I could test out my lights before going to New York\u201d he says, \u201cI barely ever play live here.\u201d This is due partly to the lack of recognition for, or misunderstanding of, what he does. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeople see you with a laptop and assume you\u2019re just a DJ,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019m playing all my own music, I\u2019m manipulating the songs live, I have lights that I\u2019ve spent hours programming . . . I don\u2019t want to devalue that [hard work] by playing some mediocre thing for a hundred bucks. On the other side, I\u2019m going through the airport with all this gear and [airport security] thinks it\u2019s a bomb. So it\u2019s pretty great either way.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Despite this, the trip to New York found AudioOpera playing a showcase curated by one of the labels\/collectives he is a part of, Noise Collectors. He also commenced work on a collaborative EP with rapper and Das Racist affiliate, Lakutis, which is being co-produced by himself and label head Hot Sugar. <\/span><\/p>\n Despite his successes outside of the city (he is also affiliated with Juno-winner Ryan Hemsworth\u2019s <\/span>Secret Songs <\/span><\/i>imprint), AudioOpera laments the lack of funding he is able to get locally, especially regarding music video production. His qualms seem directed towards a dated system. “In the States, there’s tons of money being thrown around,” he explains. “Here the only real way to get anything funded is through grants. And they’re great at doing what they know – indie bands, folk singers – but they don’t seem to really understand the stuff I’m doing and the money, time, and effort that goes into it.” Watch an AudioOpera video and it’s clear these aren’t slapped together overnight. His last one presented him as a sort of techno priest moving through the desert. The music blogosphere has taken notice. Vice’s high art subsidiary i-D premiered his latest (self-described) \u2018non-video\u2019 for the single “Poor Handwriting” off of his new EP, which is an ethereal, swirling, melancholy, but enthralling listen. Best played in it\u2019s entirety, the LP “The Runaway Prince” premiered on Fader. “It can be a bit frustrating when I can show I’m on this, that, and the other, and then struggle to get a third of the budget I need for a project,” he says. <\/span><\/p>\n AudioOpera has been a recognizable online name for some time. His first brush with internet notoriety was a couple years ago with his Twitter account. Featuring an iconic photo of a ramen noodle-haired Justin Timberlake in the early 2000s with the colours inverted to look like he had a horrible spray tan and the tagline \u201cDo I Look Tan?,\u201d it became popular for jokes that, seemingly unwittingly and always effortlessly, combined nostalgia, pop culture, and salt, usually in far less than the allotted 140 characters. He very quickly amassed thousands of followers. \u201cThen Vine came out and my phone was so shitty that it couldn\u2019t handle it,\u201d he says, \u201call the top Twitter people went to Vine and I didn\u2019t. Twitter is dead now. There is a lot of funny stuff on Vine, but most Viners suck. It was kind of a missed opportunity, but I don\u2019t care. I don\u2019t want to be a Vine comedian.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n AudioOpera\u2019s plan for the rest of the year and into 2016 is to continue working tirelessly on music. He is working on the aforementioned collaborative EP, and \u201cconstantly\u201d creating new solo material. Despite his frustrations, he plans to continue to attempt to \u201cwork\u201d the grant system. \u201cLook out for me going up against a 16 year-old guitar genius in the next round of grants,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m here to get that money, baby.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Mike Skwark I meet AudioOpera at a Salisbury House \u2018Xpress\u2019 near the University of Manitoba. He is dressed in a white and green coat with patches sewn on that look like they came from an ornate quilt, over a black t-shirt with a purple dragon on it. He posits his purple cotton pants once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}