How did you meet?
We happened to be at the same place at the same time-- the library of the university [in Paris] where we were studying, so that was totally random. We were living together for maybe one year and were involved in some other peoples’ band, and at one point making music together became the continuation of our life as a couple.
What did you like about playing together initially?
We guess that it was kinda exciting to build our own language. From the beginning there was this tension between what would be the melodic and the cacophonic, between the song and the noise, and we could build around this tension. And those ideas have not changed that much; they have just been reinforced through listening to artists who mastered their art more than we did.
Any specific examples?
Yes, Tarentel would be the best example, especially We Move Through Weather-- it has a very peculiar atmosphere. Six Organs of Admittance is another one, for the mix of acoustic instruments, catchy songs and drones.
Solange was classically-trained, while Mehdi knew very little about musical technique when NSB started. Has that created any challenges?
We had to find a common ground, and it came more from our lectures and studies and the way we conceived the world-- like coexisting layers of alternate reality that you can intertwine through your own art, layers that you can explore through shifting perspectives-- than our heterogeneous musical practices. Those ideas push the music away from the apparent opposition between one musical practice that is amateurish and one that is more institutional, between the oral and the written.
In 2004 you moved from Paris to Vitre. Why?
Partly for professional reasons, but we wanted to move from Paris for years, so professional reasons offered us the occasion to do so. There’s always this cliché opposition between the town and the country, but moving really had an effect on our, well, productivity, like it triggered something that’s been already there for a long time. It's hard to put a finger on it-- it's kinda phenomenological. In Innu culture, there was a place called Atiku-Mitshuap, which literally means “the house of the deers.” It’s a gigantic hollow mountain, and every year, as it’s been told in stories, if the bond between human and non-human realm is still strong, the Deer-Master opens some gates, and thousands of deer fly out of the mountain towards the hunting grounds, a cornucopia of deer. That’s the best image for what happened to us.
How much of your music is written and how much is improvised?
We try everything we can: from pure improvisations recorded directly to tape, to reconstruction of tracks after improvised segments, to straightforward songs built around three chords. But using the word written is tricky for us. The only things we've ever written were texts and chord progression. We don't write music. Solange knew [how to do] that at some point but forgot, so we consider the rest as improvised in a more or less structured way.
Do you think of your structured songs and your abstract pieces as different, or as parts of a whole?
They’re part of the same continuum. But songs have always been used as, well, bread crumbs-- something familiar that could mark the way through a very dark journey. And there's always noise in the background-- something undefined, crawling and submerging the human voice.
Do you mean bread crumbs for you, or the listener?
For both, we think. It’s easier to evoke one narrative through words. To use another metaphor, it’s the spot on the map saying you (we) are here.
How do you go about putting a record together? I’m particularly curious about The Snowbringer Cult and the decision to put NSB and your solo projects on one release.
Most of the time there's a set of particular ideas behind recording sessions that will at some point form the basis of a record, call it the narrative or the subtext, even if we produce a lot of scrap and there will be choice to be made. But with The Snowbringer Cult, we got straight to the point: it’s probably the record for which we have the least direct-to-the trash sounds. The idea of putting together all of our musical personae came from Alex Cobb of Students of Decay.
Where did the title come from?
The title came from some kind of insider joke between the two of us: the fact that through our ever-growing interest in non-Western world visions and idiosyncratic ones, and the fact that those same world views, and disappeared customs, and weird ethos were contaminating the way we saw things in our own culture, we would start to look like some obscure cult members. How ancient cultures can terraform yours was the idea behind The Snowbringer Cult. That was our idea of syncretism at the time-- the music and the artwork as a very personal alternate reality where you can disappear. Solange’s artwork for the record was there to offer a glimpse of the phantasmagorical and raggedy universe behind the music.
Is the art usually made after the recording?
It depends. The ideal is when the art is made during the recording period. It’s like the ideas floating around will nurture both music and Solange’s drawings, creating loose strings between the two. The visual side of a record represents for us 50% of the work. We’re fond of graphic novels; the best comparison would be Dan Clowes’ The Yellow Streak-- you’ve got four captions, the music, the titles, try to reconstruct what it is all about. Discontinuity can guide you but it can also be deceptive.
Why did you start doing solo work? Do those projects influence each other?
It was the best way not to completely mind-melt with each other-- to keep some sort of sanity, and explore territory that wouldn't interest us while together. And yes, it obviously had influence on our common practice in NSB, stylistically. The influence can be a negative one, like, “We can’t be doing that kind of songs in NSB anymore.” Solo projects are more like personal diaries.
Since most of your music is made at home, is it challenging to translate it to a live setting?
At one point, we abandoned the idea of delivering exact versions of songs from the albums. We like to improvise, to construct something that would be recognizable by an audience not because it’s the perfect replica of a recorded song, but because it’s the sound, the atmosphere, the idea of this song. It’s not different from the way we’re playing together at home. The audience, the sound of the venue, and our own mood at the time will change everything.
When you play music, what effect does it have on you?
It would be like following foot prints in the snow, and you realize that the footprints are getting bigger and weirder, and that what you are chasing is transforming into something else, shifting its nature with all the emotion and mental states that can come with the discovery.
Do you think your music is at all political?
Everything is political, no matter what you’re doing-- it’s hard to escape. Is experimental/noise/drone music from the left or from the right? Is it apolitical? Is our music reactionary? Can the music we made be used to endorse ideas we did not support? If yes, is it an aesthetic failure? Do we have to stylistically evolve to avoid that? Is singing like a girl for a man a statement on gender and masculinity? Is Two Lane Blacktop less political than La Chinoise? Those are questions we can pose ourselves but would never formulate literally through our music. That’s not our goal at the moment we’re making music; we wouldn’t consider it as a direct propaganda instrument for any cause, that’s a fact. We can’t be frontally political. We like ambiguities and humor, so it’s subliminal, but conscious.