A.S. Valentino

A.S. Valentino’s new single, “Let Me See Your Sin,” is a slinking exploration of kink and redemption and is the first track from Valentino’s forthcoming debut album, Summoning on Psychic Eye Records. In “Let Me See Your Sin,” synthpop glides effortlessly into darkwave, with occasional industrial elements grinding against each other, all underscoring lyrics that swell with pain, resolve and love. Describing his music as “trans darkwave,” A.S. Valentino expands in the interview below on the almost inseparable links between his trans identity and his music. In “Let Me See Your Sin” and throughout the album as a whole, A.S. Valentino’s Summoning invokes enough power and mystery to set him apart as a gatecrasher to watch in 2024.
What is your newest single, ‘Let Me See Your Sin,’ about?

A.S. Valentino: “Let Me See Your Sin” is about the redemptive power of BDSM and kink to expel or reclaim shame around sexuality and desire. I was raised Catholic, and I am very attracted to the overlap between religious imagery and ritual and the power of ritual in BDSM and D/s relationships. Particularly in Catholicism, it’s so kinky, gory, sadistic and masochistic all at once. And of course, I enjoy the blasphemy and perversion as well, that’s an added bonus. Catholicism is all about shame, guilt, and the confession of sins for repentance, to be wiped clean again, to be accepted into heaven. In the world of “Let Me See Your Sin,” sinners are encouraged to present their lust, sins and impurity like holy sacraments to be amplified, bringing rapture and redemption through the ritual of BDSM.

How do you describe your music generally?

I would describe my music as informed by darkwave, coldwave, industrial, synthwave, EBM, and metal at times, but filtered through a specifically trans and queer lens. The music on Summoning vacillates between creepy and sexy, frenetic and crushing, but some songs are pretty melodic. I like to describe it offhandedly as a soundtrack of sleaze, synths, and sin.

What inspires you to create the kind of music that you make?

I am drawn to dark music, to the interplay between dissonance and melody.

I started this project about the same time as I started medically transitioning. I think my music channels the anxiety of being transgender in a world that hates and fears us. You can hear my voice changing over the course of the Dancing with Dysphoria EP to Summoning, my debut album. Rather than hide it, I leaned more heavily into the androgynous, gravelly sound of my voice. It’s very vulnerable to record a record while your voice is actively changing. I also leaned more into how much of the world sees me, as monstrous, shapeshifting, that which subverts and perverts the natural order.

On the one hand, a lot of my music dwells in the darkness in life – oppression (“Gatekeeper,” “Circle of Dissonance”), death and mortality (“Bodies,” “The Attic”). And in other ways, I explore what is life-affirming for me – kink as spirituality, trans self-determination, the power in being a monster, of being a threat to the order of society.

“I think the synthesizer is inherently sort of a trans instrument – it can emulate and embody new sounds, despite how it looks, and is infinite in its expression.”
— A.S. Valentino

The title of your upcoming album is Summoning. What is this album summoning?

The track “The Summoning” is about returning to what is natural and authentic. It starts with the moon calling, asking you to shed your identity, your clothes, name and money and instead bring your “claws, hair and fang.”

I think for me the album is a summoning of what is natural and authentic in me that others may see as unnatural. I believe that people are often most authentic when they are children before they have completed their indoctrination and domestication into society. Part of my adult life has been dissecting this process of indoctrination, shedding the parts that aren’t actually me. It’s also the first full-length I’ve put out since medically transitioning and the first one under A.S. Valentino, so it’s a couple of firsts all in one.

There’s also a ton of sounds from the natural world on here even though they sound unnatural. Wolves, bats, hyenas, vultures, wind, stuff like that. I love pairing natural sounds with unnatural, synthesized sounds, which is why there’s also a lot of live, improvised percussion samples on the record. I don’t own many proper percussion instruments, however, so I usually improvise with different items and textures around my house. I love going on a sound hunt, looking for what would add atmosphere or excitement to a track.

I think the record also summons the duality of lightness and darkness in myself and in life – the horror and the beauty, the dissonance and the melody, and the anxiety in between. The song “Bodies” deals a lot with that. How the body can be a site for miracles, but also horror, and the way bodies are controlled, perceived, and policed by society at large – particularly trans bodies, Black and Brown bodies, and so on.

What is your musical background, and how did you decide to focus your output into this sonic sphere?

I started out in punk, indie rock, and metal bands, and then fell in love with drum machines and synthesizers and the ability to work alone and write whole songs and control all the parts. I think the synthesizer is inherently sort of a trans instrument – it can emulate and embody new sounds, despite how it looks, and is infinite in its expression.

I spent over a decade writing electronic pop music. I liked the challenge of trying to write hooks and earworms. However, my original creative impulses were towards darker music. I’ve struggled with depression throughout my life, so darkwave is a natural way to channel that part of myself. Songwriting is often a process of chewing and digesting for me. However, you can still hear some of the pop boy come through on “Summoning”.

The song “Butch Dyke” is a sort of industrial ode to butches of the world, which is an interesting flip from the standard “sexy femme” trope and implied (hetero)sexuality of most of industrial music. I have to ask: Which came first in writing this song, the lyrics, or the music? And what was your thought process as you worked on the track?

This is an interesting question. I would say the concept came first. I wanted to write a tribute to my butch ancestors, and in particular, a love song to the first butch I ever saw.

I grew up in a very rural, isolated area and didn’t see my first d*ke until I was 17. Me and my best friend had fake IDs and we snuck into a bar and that was where I saw my first butch, shooting pool, short cropped hair in a white T-shirt. I’d like to say I had a revelatory moment and was struck with awe, but honestly, I felt a reflex of repulsion and fear. What I didn’t know at the time is that I was seeing a part of myself that I wasn’t ready to accept.

But also, I think that’s a common reaction to butch and transmasculine people in general. Our existence is a threat to many. It’s taken many years to accept and love my butchness and transness, and I wrote this song as a sort of love song, a reclamation, and an apology to that first butch I ever saw and to all of my butch and trans ancestors, many of which have disappeared into history, their names and stories erased.

It’s also interesting because I feel like in the queer community there is a narrative that the “butches are disappearing” because more people are choosing to pursue medical transition. I guess I don’t see that as mutually exclusive. I am butch and I am trans masculine and I am forever grateful to my butch ancestors who made it possible for me to exist in this form.

In terms of the music, I wanted it to sound intimidating, confrontational, but also sexy, with a lot of swagger. I actually wrote several different drafts and this is the one that made it on the record.

What artists do you think have influenced your music?

Honestly, I find this one of the hardest questions to answer because I have a voracious appetite for music. I listen to so many genres and pull inspiration from so much. Just today, I listened to modal jazz, house, industrial hip-hop, doom metal. I guess in my genre I would say big influences are Siouxsie and the Banshees, HEALTH, She Past Away, Paradox Obscur, Author & Punisher, artists like that. I’m sure I’m missing a ton. But in terms of an artist I’ve probably listened to more than any other artist – I’d have to say Prince.

Will you be touring in 2024? If so, where do you foresee going?

In 2024, I plan to do a West Coast tour and play cities from Seattle down to the Bay Area, maybe down to LA as well. - Decaycast

A.S. Valentino can think of few better symbols for someone going through the process of FTM transition than the werewolf.

“When you are on HRT testosterone therapy, most people become hairier and stronger and gain muscle, which is very similar to werewolves,” says Valentino, a trans Portland darkwave artist. “And both werewolves and the transmasculine community are, in the popular imagination, scary to heteronormative folks.”

Valentino has fully embraced the metaphor with “Werewolf,” a steamy tune that recalls the synth-heavy throb of early Ministry. Driving the point home further is the sexy video they created with filmmaker Mason Rose that features lots of leather, latex, sweaty skin, chains, and werewolf masks.

“I wanted it to be about the ritual of transition,” Valentino says, “but it also had to be something that’s scary and exciting and about coming into a stronger form of myself. And I wanted to have a trans werewolf orgy vibe, which I was particularly excited about.” - Willamette Week