About Gary V's Prism Tats
The sophisticatedly melodic self-titled debut from Prism Tats is available in stores now. For the newly acquainted, Prism Tats is the rock 'n roll creation of musician Garett van der Spek; a project that pulls from various visual and musical inspirations to create waking dream sub-realities that devastate and elate. The debut album is a culmination of a creative life spent on the grind, honing instincts and eventually going all-in on a singular dream.
Prism Tats was written and recorded in its entirety by van der Spek, featuring his own extraordinary vocals, drum machine, guitar, and bass synth - the work of a true one-man rock 'n roll machine. He grew up in Durban, South Africa listening to his father’s collection of rock records from the U.K. and U.S.: Beatles, Bowie, Hendrix, Kinks, Sabbath. The unique influence of his homeland burns deeply, too. “My earliest memory of being affected by music was when I was six years old, seeing a man busking by the side of the road,” van der Spek recalls. “His name was Elvis, a self-styled African ‘rock star’ who played a hybrid brand of rock and roll on a homemade guitar. I was hooked.”
The album displays van der Spek’s unusual blend of rock-and-roll chops (reminiscent at times of Spoon’s Britt Daniel), and combines real shades of steam and heat with comparatively-meditative reverb-laden tracks, recalling at times the ghostly throwback groove-stomp and fuzzy warmth of bands like The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Kills and The Raveonettes.