VIDEO PREMIERE: NOx - 'ALTAR'
A new duo will take you on a twisted journey through the outer reaches of noise and dark ambient. Beware.
Remember Cavernancia? A wonderfully fucked up one-man noise project I told you about some time ago here? Well, as it is rather usual with the way the people who do this kind of “music” are wired, projects of this sort end up not only evolving, but multiplying and inevitably bringing other like-minded weirdos to their fold. Though Cavernancia still exists, Pedro Roque has now teamed up with Jerome Faria, another well-known figure of the experimental underground in Portugal (Pedro also joined an improvisational noise rock band in the meantime, but that’s a conversation for another day). The result is NOx, a truly noxious - and yes, they do use the puns allowed by the name to describe their music too, even conceptually playing with the idea of “exposure” to certain acids; actually if you look at the name of the street up there on the pic, it’s the sulphuric acid street - exploration of noise, dark ambient, drone, and generally feedback-y, bleep-y, heavily textured room-clearing play-it-loud-and-try-to-stay-alive head-fuckery. The very first result of their collaboration in this new project is about to come out, on April 30th, via Colectivo Casa Amarela, obviously in tape format. Painful as the whole 33-minute listen of the whole thing you’ll be (I’ve done it, and I’m still shaking a little), it’s also unusually welcoming for this sort of thing, as if once you get used to the storm around you, standing in its centre allows you to pick up on the beautifully twisted chaos that is unfolding with no respite. Besides, they do play live, so the thought that this is a somehow controlled version of the true unhinged version of the band is truly frightening.
Though ‘ALTAR’ is one piece, meant to be listened to in its entirety if you’re brave enough for it, in a rare display of user-friendliness, NOx and Casa Amarela have split it in five parts, one for each letter of the title, for a more digestible experience, and also for a treat like this - one part of the piece (so, technically, ‘T’), accompanied by a harrowing, shadowy video, that you can now experience here on The Devil’s Mouth before anywhere else. After you watch it, while you drown in repeat listens of these bad-mood frequencies, we recommend you check out the chat we had with Pedro and Jerome, right after the jump. Noise not music!
‘ALTAR’ comes out on April 30th via Colectivo Casa Amarela.
You can find NOx on Instagram, Bandcamp and YouTube.
“Our biggest inspiration is our ability to distinguish between a good and a bad idea, and being generally in agreement of choosing the latter.“
— Jerome Faria
What are the origins of this project? How did you guys get together? Was there any musical objective in mind at that point?
Pedro Roque: I met Jerome because we kept going to the same gigs and with time we ended up becoming friends. When I started making experimental music, he gave me a lot of tips and got me some of the software that allowed me to start playing around by myself. Our first collaboration took place when João Castro from Nariz entupido challenged us after my first Cavernancia show. Though I still had little experience, I accepted the invitation straight away and so Cavernancia’s second show happened as a duo with Jerome, and it went very well. That moment was recorded and it was even supposed to have been released physically, but the label that was interested didn’t go through with it, and as time went by I started gathering more equipment, evolving, and got to a point when that material didn’t really mean all that much to me anymore. So I kept poking Jerome for us to collaborate again and do something better. That gathering finally happened in the beginning of this year, and ‘ALTAR’ is the result. I decided to turn this into a whole new project because what we do is somewhat more abrasive and chaotic than what I do with Cavernancia.
Jerome Faria: I first became aware of Pedro through his photography work, when I moved to Lisboa and started going to some shows. After a while, like he said, we naturally became friends, and I supported him with a bit of my experience that I accumulated over the years when he started to develop what would become Cavernancia. João Castro from Nariz Entupido knew my previous work and he suggested we collaborate on a show, and the result was so positive that we were sure we’d get together again.
So this piece - which is one piece, though divided in five bits, right? - was your first collaborative recording, how spontaneous is it? Is there any kind of fine tweaking to get this result, or did you want to keep the spontaneity of improvisating together? Did any of you actually bring any individual material as a basis of work when you had this session?
Pedro: Yeah, even if the piece is divided in five moments, it’s meant to be taken as a single 33-minute work. We shoved ourselves into the studio for four hours and we had three takes. Everything was improvised and without any big previous plans. It was just a matter of following our instincts and letting it flow. There were a couple of little editing touches afterwards but nothing meaningful, what you listen on it is 100% organic. The only individual work was in terms of the gear choice to take to the session. In this case we opted for simple setups, doing a lot with little.
Jerome: The process has been fully organic and based on the principle of action-reaction. We’ve been exploring improvisation under two parameters only: gear and length. There has been minimal post-production and the original form of the material is almost intact.
What are your biggest inspirations for the conceptual part? Is there any specific universe that you think NOx are a part of?
Jerome: Though I have no doubts that one of the best things about this project is the multidisciplinary quality of all the intervening factors, its concept is a bit more rudimentary than it might seem. I’d risk saying that our biggest inspiration is our ability to distinguish between a good and a bad idea, and being generally in agreement of choosing the latter.
Pedro: In this case, I remembered there was a nitric acid factory near the studio where we recorded, and I suggested using the NOx component for the project name. A simple search should be enough to understand what it causes in the environment. Because our sound is very acid itself as well, I thought it made sense. During this initial stage, we will use that “chemical” universe a lot, but everything is wide open for the future.
What are the general plans for that future? Do you foresee a numerous amount of releases as is typical with noise projects, or will you try to have a little more criteria in what you might release?
Pedro: There isn’t a defined plan, as such, but certainly we want to try to make our noise with some degree of quality. We are already sketching out some ideas, and if something comes up in our next studio session, we’ll work on it with an intention to release it. No pressure, we will just see how things roll as we go along.
Jerome: This being the first work by this project, I think it would be premature to limit its nature or description to a noise project or a consistent release schedule. As we continue to work together, I’m sure we will determine what feels to us both interesting and able to be accomplished. Fortunately we both have years of experience, enough to know where and what we are doing, and we have our feet firmly planted on the ground.
Since you will play live, what can be expected of those shows? Do you plan to reproduce in any way what you have released, or will shows also be vehicles for improvisation and experimentation?
Jerome: I doubt we could even reproduce anything, even if we tried. The fact is that there are moments in the studio when it’s actually a challenge to even distinguish who is doing what. The sonic density is so strong sometimes that we listen to the final mix as its own organism, rather than a sum of both parts. Having said that, what we expect to get from live shows is a bigger acoustic pressure and immersion.
Pedro: Yeah, shows will be 100% improvised. Due to the nature of the machinery we used, it’s almost impossible to reproduce a recording. I’ll take this opportunity to reveal that our first show will take place at Desterro, in Lisboa, on May 2nd!
Pedro, between NOx e Cavernancia, you have enough of a racket to keep a battalion of neighbours awake for months. Might that be too much noise? You joining a noise rock band, could it be a little hidden desire for structure manifesting itself? [laughs]
Pedro: hahaha, I fear nothing! Noise will never be enough, and I want to keep breaking barriers. I did get into a noise rock band, ΔIII / XIII, but guess what, there’s no structure either and it’s all improvised!
