Paranormal activity

THOUGH HE’S A SELF-DESCRIBED

“guitar junkie,” having played in a number of bands over the years and built up a solid profile as a pedal builder for Death by Audio and a new company, Trap Door Electronics, Travis Johnson enjoys letting his instrument play more of a supporting role in his newest project, Activity.

The Brooklyn-based quartet just released their second album, Spirit in the Room, with electronics and synths co-existing with heavily effected clean guitars — to the point where it can be a challenge discerning which is exactly which. It’s this ethereal and eclectic approach to sonic experimentation that allows Johnson and his bandmates — Jess Rees (guitar/vocals/keys), Bri DiGioia (bass/vocals) and Steven Levine (drums) — to prevail in the abstract, dreaming up floaty atmospheres that eventually morph into meditative trances. As he explains to Guitar World, the group is undertaking more of a modern twist on psychedelic rock, though with some obscure vintage influences coalescing with left-field British sounds from the Nineties.

“I guess it was a conscious decision to have the guitars sit in the background like that,” Johnson says. “Sometimes it’s up front, but a lot of the time it’s not. We’re influenced by a lot of krautrock like Can and Neu! and more recent stuff like Broadcast, Portishead and Beak. With those bands, there is guitar — it’s definitely in there — but quite often you can’t tell if it’s the main thing the song was written around. We’re all about the swirl of noise as a whole.

“And while this is the furthest I’ve ever been from ‘guitar music,’ the guitar is the only thing I truly know how to play. My previous projects were always inching closer and closer to this sound. I started off playing indie rock, which is very guitar-driven, then moved toward music that was mixed with electronics but still mainly guitars. Then I got more into samples in my previous band, Grooms. When t