Easynoodles is the stage name of Eli Schwemler, a freshman at Syracuse University studying communications design. Working out of his bedroom, Schwemler crafts a blend of synths and sharp visuals. This month, he released his debut LP “The Unzone.”

The Daily Orange sat down with him to discuss his approach to music, visuals and how he got his name.

The Daily Orange: How did you get your name Easynoodles?

Easynoodles: I hosted a kid from Shanghai in my home in Philadelphia and he kind of brought home the best imported noodles there were. They just looked so damn good that I had to take a picture of them every time. Eventually, I wound up with so many pictures of noodles that I called it Easynoodles Media. It stemmed from there and became Easynoodles as a whole. It all came from good cuisine basically.

The D.O.: What is Easynoodles Media then?

E.N.: I did mostly graphic design stuff before I actually got into music stuff. It was just basically an overarching term for anything with video editing, anything graphic design or anything Photoshop-based.

The D.O.: Have you been into making music your whole life?

E.N.: Nah man. I don’t know like any music theory at all. I’m good with computer software so when I saw that my friends were using Logic in high school, I just picked it up from there. I then played around with it until I got a good hold of it. It was 11th grade. It was just the stock one on Logic. I love using stock instruments. Just this year, I started playing around and got good. I then learned how to master and mix tracks.

Courtesy of Eli Schwemler

The D.O.: Why do you like stock instruments?

E.N.: It’s so funny! It sounds different because nobody wants to use them.  Another cool thing is that you can distort them. You can distort any instrument really. It also gives you a consistent feel throughout your work because you have such a limited number of instruments to work with, so you have to get creative and experimental with what you do with them.

The D.O.: How would you describe your music to someone who has never listened to it?

E.N.: Oh my God, that’s so hard. The first thing I guess is that it is all synthesizer, no lyrics at all, and it’s very cinematic, dramatic in a way. It’s not EDM, but it’s electronic.

The D.O.:  What other genres would it be related to?

E.N.: One I like to use to describe it is synthwave because it is so vague. I don’t know if you know what trance music is, but it was big in the early 2000s and I think it’s really funny to tie my music to that. It was an option for picking out the genre when I put my album on Spotify, under psychedelic-trance. I picked that because it was really funny, and I used to listen to that stuff.

The D.O.: What artists have inspired you?

E.N.: I can actually list this very well. Basically, early 2000s Newgrounds music. The Gorillaz. Besides their mainstream rap stuff, they did killer instrumentals that are purely experimental. There is this one guy from Florida, his name is Home, and his most popular song is “Resonance.” He does a lot of other synthwave stuff I can really get into.

The D.O.: Can you tell us about your new album?

E.N.: “The Unzone” got started when I wanted to do something different on Instagram. I started adding music visuals to my feed. It got to a point where I was making small, 10-second snippets for basically animated pictures. Then I thought, “This is so dead end, and I want to expand this.” So I eventually made them into full songs. Once I realized that I had this whole collection of pictures that went with the music, I almost saw a story there and decided to write a screenplay for it. The overarching idea is that it’s a party that goes wrong or a party that never ends up happening at all.

The D.O.: Do you have any new releases?

E.N.: I have a new single that actually has vocals; I did that one with my friend Meredith. I don’t know when that one is coming out — I still have to do mastering on it, and we want to do a video with it. We will probably film it before the school year is done and release it sometime this summer.

Published on April 30, 2018 at 8:45 pm

Contact Tighe: tgugerty@syr.edu