NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM Belgium
NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM, aka NNMM and its multiple “Arkestra” formulas, was initiated by multi-instrumentalist Guillaume Cazalet on guitar/bass and vocals with veteran saxophonist Jean Jacques Duerinckx in Brussels in 2018, during a residency with the two drummers Sébastien Schmit and Pierre Arese.
The result of this encounter was a bifacial entity, sometimes calling for a primitive voodoo trance with percussive intonations, dominated by repetitive and explosive rhythm, threatening wild spirits emanating from a violent original chaos, sometimes towards a psychedelic meditation based on amplified drone music where time, harmony, the power of the tonic and its iridescent harmonics, weight, durability, ruin are explored aspects. All this was the result of a freely improvised musical process captured in 2 intense days.
From this residency was born their first EP, The Conference Of The Stars (2018), released on Homo Sensibilis Sounds, a powerful universal expansion manifested by a slow, heavy and intense harmonic progression illuminated by a flamboyant sopranino saxophone.
It will be followed by an epic trilogy album of 02h09min entitled ÉONS (2020) released on I, Voidhanger Records which remains the centerpiece of their discography as its radicality, its coherent diversity and its singularity finds no equal, mixing mystical and chaotic drone/doom metal, pachidermic free jazz, the whole animated by a cosmic and psychedelic energy imbued with primary forces, inhabited by spiritual and prophetic possessions, resulting in part from the editing, arrangement and post-production work of Guillaume and exalted by a cover signed by the Japanese monumental painter artist Kaneko Tomiyuki.
By exploring the evolution of the human species, they question the future of life on earth, the narrative of which is drawn in titles as evocative as they are hermetic, and whose expression takes shape through the use of speculative texts in prototypal Homo-sapiens language (*Pierre Lanchantin), the attraction to philosophy, the academic path in architecture and plastic arts as well as a form of shamanic introspection aimed at the invocation of ancestral or inner animal identities. The collective ultimately attempts to create a feeling of acceptance of the end of the "Anthropocene" era through a soteriological musical experience.
In 2019, Guillaume undertook the creation of a larger line-up in order to restore the multiple musical layers resulting from the postproduction work of the first albums. Reshma Goolamy (bass), Romain Martini (guitar), Didié Nietzche (granular synthesis), Joaquín Bermudez (saz), Alice Thiel (keyboard), Stephane Fedele & Lukas Melville (drums) joined the project that takes the form of the "Arkestra".
In 2020, they gave birth to the album Solar Drone Ceremony which now balances free improvisation and composition in a psychedelic space opera of doom, free jazz and krautrock, followed by two live albums, Set The Chaos To The Heart Of The Moon (Roadburn Redux 2021) and Finis Gloriae Mundi (2022) which partly compile the first two albums reinterpreted for the stage. The project then begins to tour on European stages until the end of 2023. In the meantime, the collective has proposed several works and live recordings composed of different formations, multiple sound/spatial explorations and various techniques and creative protocols, such as its socalled "Drone Arkestra" formation without percussion flirting with spectral/serialist music, or its formation "Adisheshanaga Trio" composed of Guillaume, Jean Jacques and percussionist Sattar Khan on tablas.
Still producing a form of syncretic music, NNMM begins 2023 on a turning point with the Adishesha Arkestra: a 6-member formation and a new album recorded in a single live take in a church at the Judgment Hall Festival in London, presented at Roadburn 2024, exploring Indian classical music using amplified instruments. This new era will show a different vision of music and devotion. Guided by Guillaume who learns and practices Indian classical music in depth guided by renowned sitarist Roopa Panesar, NNMM is now looking for the absolute emotional power of Hindustani music with as much respect as possible for this culture in their exploration of Ragas, their new spiritual weapon to achieve the soteriological musical experience.
From this field of exploration will be born a new triple album: Le Sacre Du Soleil Invaincu (LSDSI) which will be released in April 2025 (I, Voidhanger Records), produced with the support of the FWB and Le Botanique. This album revisits 3 Ragas of Indian music: Raga Marwa, Todi and Bairagi.
Lately, Rob Martin has been officiating on drums while new line-up changes are coming in anticipation of future creative work and/or individual circumstances. The collective is now beginning the exploration of composed music for a long-format studio piece, with an increased concern for detail and in homage to some of their deep inspirations.
NNMM will offer a dive into their renewed spirits, always calling for the beginning of a new era.
The result of this encounter was a bifacial entity, sometimes calling for a primitive voodoo trance with percussive intonations, dominated by repetitive and explosive rhythm, threatening wild spirits emanating from a violent original chaos, sometimes towards a psychedelic meditation based on amplified drone music where time, harmony, the power of the tonic and its iridescent harmonics, weight, durability, ruin are explored aspects. All this was the result of a freely improvised musical process captured in 2 intense days.
From this residency was born their first EP, The Conference Of The Stars (2018), released on Homo Sensibilis Sounds, a powerful universal expansion manifested by a slow, heavy and intense harmonic progression illuminated by a flamboyant sopranino saxophone.
It will be followed by an epic trilogy album of 02h09min entitled ÉONS (2020) released on I, Voidhanger Records which remains the centerpiece of their discography as its radicality, its coherent diversity and its singularity finds no equal, mixing mystical and chaotic drone/doom metal, pachidermic free jazz, the whole animated by a cosmic and psychedelic energy imbued with primary forces, inhabited by spiritual and prophetic possessions, resulting in part from the editing, arrangement and post-production work of Guillaume and exalted by a cover signed by the Japanese monumental painter artist Kaneko Tomiyuki.
By exploring the evolution of the human species, they question the future of life on earth, the narrative of which is drawn in titles as evocative as they are hermetic, and whose expression takes shape through the use of speculative texts in prototypal Homo-sapiens language (*Pierre Lanchantin), the attraction to philosophy, the academic path in architecture and plastic arts as well as a form of shamanic introspection aimed at the invocation of ancestral or inner animal identities. The collective ultimately attempts to create a feeling of acceptance of the end of the "Anthropocene" era through a soteriological musical experience.
In 2019, Guillaume undertook the creation of a larger line-up in order to restore the multiple musical layers resulting from the postproduction work of the first albums. Reshma Goolamy (bass), Romain Martini (guitar), Didié Nietzche (granular synthesis), Joaquín Bermudez (saz), Alice Thiel (keyboard), Stephane Fedele & Lukas Melville (drums) joined the project that takes the form of the "Arkestra".
In 2020, they gave birth to the album Solar Drone Ceremony which now balances free improvisation and composition in a psychedelic space opera of doom, free jazz and krautrock, followed by two live albums, Set The Chaos To The Heart Of The Moon (Roadburn Redux 2021) and Finis Gloriae Mundi (2022) which partly compile the first two albums reinterpreted for the stage. The project then begins to tour on European stages until the end of 2023. In the meantime, the collective has proposed several works and live recordings composed of different formations, multiple sound/spatial explorations and various techniques and creative protocols, such as its socalled "Drone Arkestra" formation without percussion flirting with spectral/serialist music, or its formation "Adisheshanaga Trio" composed of Guillaume, Jean Jacques and percussionist Sattar Khan on tablas.
Still producing a form of syncretic music, NNMM begins 2023 on a turning point with the Adishesha Arkestra: a 6-member formation and a new album recorded in a single live take in a church at the Judgment Hall Festival in London, presented at Roadburn 2024, exploring Indian classical music using amplified instruments. This new era will show a different vision of music and devotion. Guided by Guillaume who learns and practices Indian classical music in depth guided by renowned sitarist Roopa Panesar, NNMM is now looking for the absolute emotional power of Hindustani music with as much respect as possible for this culture in their exploration of Ragas, their new spiritual weapon to achieve the soteriological musical experience.
From this field of exploration will be born a new triple album: Le Sacre Du Soleil Invaincu (LSDSI) which will be released in April 2025 (I, Voidhanger Records), produced with the support of the FWB and Le Botanique. This album revisits 3 Ragas of Indian music: Raga Marwa, Todi and Bairagi.
Lately, Rob Martin has been officiating on drums while new line-up changes are coming in anticipation of future creative work and/or individual circumstances. The collective is now beginning the exploration of composed music for a long-format studio piece, with an increased concern for detail and in homage to some of their deep inspirations.
NNMM will offer a dive into their renewed spirits, always calling for the beginning of a new era.
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