Sometimes you choose a career and other times it chooses you. But when the decision or choices, or lack there of, are not as transparent as you’d like them to be, sometimes you have to go back to your roots. Such is the case with Toronto’s David Psutka, a.k.a. Egyptrixx. “I’ve been in a lot of different places, I wanted to do a lot of different things and music is the one thing I’ve sort of been doing in a more or less consistent way since I was a little kid,” Psutka said.

Egyptrixx has been Psutka’s LivePA name for two years and he has since released several EP’s including Battle for North America, which came out last Tuesday with a full length debut LP in sight. This is his first solo electronic project. In his younger years he was in the Conservatory of Music, eventually reveling the acts featured at Lee’s Palace’s matinee Sunday’s and then linking up with others.

“I played in bands before,” he said. “I played in one band that was sort of a more serious thing and me and the other guys put a lot of effort into it. Then that fell apart…I was kind of jaded by it so I started making music on my own and just messing around with stuff. Until about a couple of months ago this has been a real weekend hobby project and now things are kind of picking up so it’s like a full time gig, but that was never really the intention or the expectation.”

Creating and engineering all the tracks at his home studio, Psutka finds the process of being a solo musician much easier and more rewarding than past efforts with being a member of a band. “When you play in a band you’re lugging amps around, doing shitty tours. When you’re DJing or doing the electronic thing you may have a bag of gear at the most. I don’t want to ruin it for everyone in bands, but the economics are way different.”

“I have my studio here, I just go to work whenever,” he said. “A lot of songs grow out of me just playing keyboard. My parents have this piano that I just go home on the weekends and invariably come out with a lot of melodies or core productions on the piano. Sometimes it’s ideas that I think up of on the bus…and sometimes it’s just experimentation. I don’t really have a method or one particular method.”

In the early years of Egyptrixx, Psutka didn’t have a certain concept for the EP’s he was releasing, rather it was more about sending the tracks he composed on the weekends to labels and getting his music out there. “It was pretty laissez-faire,” he added.

Since releasing the EP’s, Egyptrixx has travelled to Europe in support of his music and has found the overseas audience to be a little more receptive. “Generally people are more interested and more caught up on electronic music or club music,” he said. “They take it a bit more seriously, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. And there is just a bigger market for it. You don’t get that in Canada, you play five of the big cities and that’s it.”

What may be surprising is the lack of press electronic music gets in Canada despite the wide variety of talent that booms, especially in or around Toronto. “Some of the biggest names in DJ culture in electronic music are from southern/southwest Ontario like Junior Boys, MSTRKRFT, Crystal Castles, those are all pretty big names,” he said. “I feel like maybe it has something to do with the infrastructure around electronic music in Canada. I would say in the music publications here there is a slant or focus towards traditional music. I guess it’s just the Canadian flavor that we are into jangly rock bands, dudes in shirts.”

Throughout the past decade and a half there has been a tremendous focus around the city’s Indie rock bands due to the likes of Broken Social Scene and their label Arts & Crafts among others. There seems to be a sound that goes with it that lots of bands strive for. Not so much the case with electronic artists.

“The (electronic) music that comes out of Toronto is always pretty eclectic,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that the city or this province or this country really has a sound. Whereas London, Paris, San Francisco…these are cities that have a pretty palpable sound or style and maybe that’s because of the infrastructure because of the camaraderie. Maybe the fact that we have none in Toronto is a good thing. Everyone feels like they can just do their own thing with no pressure to kind of conform to any kind of style.”

For his upcoming releases, Egyptrixx is planning to add to his “house music” sound and has a concept set out based on the struggles and perseverance of one of his family members.

“I’m going to start recording more live vocals and stuff, he said. “Everything’s been pretty sample heavy so far. I don’t feel restrained by the fact that I don’t have a million dollar’s worth of gear. If anything sometimes those restraints make the creative process more efficient.”

“The concept behind it is sort of a personal thing,” he said speaking of the forthcoming LP which is 60 percent finished. “The only musician of note in my entire lineage is my great grandmother who is Irish and got my family through the depression by playing the organ at funerals. She had 11 kids and lived on a farm in Schomberg. She was catholic and that was sort of the protestant heart of Ontario. I’m just sort of channelling her experience and I found it to be inspiring. I guess it’s a vague tribute to her.”