I’ve been here quite a bit over the last three years,” explains L.A. native Subtitle, aka Giovanni Marks, “but in the last year, I decided that I was actually gonna move here. I lucked out ridiculously though, because a good friend of mine put me up at his house and I got a good deal on rent, and it’s right up in the Mile-End area, around everybody else I know in this city.

“It all started when I was on tour with the band Islands, and the tour bus passed through L.A. with the tour finishing in Montreal. So I just grabbed all my stuff while we were in L.A. and moved it up here for free on the tour bus.”

A talented, welltravelled MC, Subtitle is blessed with the gift of what he calls “super scientifical madness.” Having graduated from the Los Angeles hip hop tradition that sprang from seminal movements like Project Blowed and Freestyle Fellowship, Subtitle has fostered a healthy relationship between his leftfield hip hop tendencies and the post-Bran Van 3000 explosion of Montreal talent that is taking over the world. The Mirror spoke to Subtitle from his new home right here in Montreal.

Mirror: What is it that made you decide to want to leave L.A. and come here?

Subtitle: There’s this weird chemistry between the art scene and the music scene, the city and the topography, the beautiful women, the trees. Just the synchronicity of how everything operates here, I guess. It’s like a real community. I was embraced when I got here. L.A.’s a really good town, but it’s a cold city too.

M: I think Montrealers have to be reminded sometimes that we do have it good here.

S: It’s right in the middle of everything, but still its own little world. Five hours from New York, and five hours’ flight from L.A., and Montreal has been unsullied by the foul hands of the industry! It’s like a straight jewel, or a reverse land mine, because if you move here, you’ll blow up in a good way.

M: So what’s up with the whole Megasoid collaboration?

S: Well, I’ve known Sixtoo since I was 18 or 19 years old, because he used to live on the West Coast also, so once we started hanging out here, it was like making up for lost time. Megasoid is Sixtoo and Hadji from Wolf Parade, and they’re like the Neptunes, basically, and have a production team going, and they’re just destroying everybody. All these analog synths and all this other shit, we’re just having a party, y’know? I started rapping over a couple tracks, and that worked well, and since it was a random experience, we created a side group called Randomizers. But then Jaime of Islands and Unicorns fame started making beats under the name Small Is Beautiful, and he joined Randomizer, so that we’re a fourperson group. Three guys on modular and analog synths, playing V drums, triggering the MPC, and me rapping. It turned into this straight Robotech synthesizer outfit

WMEGASOID, RANDOMIZER AND DEADBEAT ARE AT THE FIRST MEGASOID VS. EVERBODY NIGHT AT ZOOBIZARRE ON SATURDAY, JAN. 20, 10 P.M., $5

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