Nazar's musical world centres around the extreme violence, injustice, and the omnipresence of a repressive state during and after the 27-year Angolan civil war, while exploring hope, resilience, and pride in a country torn apart by conflict. The Belgian-born musician returned to Angola at the end of the civil war in 2002, at which point he also began music production, making his own unique take on Angola’s kuduro music. Nazar inverts kuduro, weaving war sounds like guns cocking and airstrike swooshes with cold synths and lyrics focus on massacres and violence, taunting against the dictatorship. Nazar calls this »rough kuduro,« a term he coined through a hashtag on his soundcloud page. Now based in Manchester and signed with Hyperdub, he released the Enclave EP in 2018, followed by his debut album Guerilla in 2020. They reflect Nazar’s tumultuous journey, but also represent a mental safe zone and reminder that in spite of airstrikes and whatever else may stand in the way, cities can be built anywhere when hope for a better future remains.
Sicilian producer, sound designer, DJ, and label founder Nino Pedone aka Shapednoise makes disassembled, distorted techno flawlessly hybridised with abrasive and transcendent sound design.
His experimental and unconventional production practices are catalogued across three cerebral album releases: the 2013 debut The Day of Revenge on Hospital Productions, 2015’s Different Selves on Type, and most recently Aesthesis on Numbers, which received a live AV debut with filmmaker Pedro Maia in the main hall of Kraftwerk at Berlin Atonal 2019. Shapednoise's DJ sets and the labels he co-founded – Cosmo Rhythmatic & REPITCH Recordings – showcase his musical heritage, including the relentless sound of the illegal European rave scene and the most radical fringes of dance music. An impressive catalogue of collaborations across releases includes work with MHYSA (NON / Halcyon Veil / Hyperdub), Drew McDowall (ex-Coil and Psychic TV), Rabit (Halcyon Veil), and Justin K Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu).
CTM 2022 x SHAPE mix: Sentient_1 by CTM Festival
CTM 2022 x SHAPE mix: Sentient_1 by CTM Festival
01. Space Afrika - Preparing the Perfect Response
02. SALEM - Crisis
03. Blackhaine - Let Me Know
04. Emma DJ - KINGSIZE
05. A$AP Rocky - Jodye
06. Sentient_1 - ????
07. Zomby, Burial - Sweetz (Nazar Remix)
08. Nazar - 27
09. Slikback & Shapednoise - XOYSIME
10. Lil Yachty - Flex Up (feat. Future & Playboi Carti)
11. Sentient_1 - Prototype 1
borshch is a magazine for electronic music on and beyond the dancefloor. Founded in Berlin in 2017 by Mariana Berezovska and Tiago Biscaia, it’s a space to provoke open dialogues and challenge established ideas about making, listening, and dancing to music. In this short interview, Mariana Berezovska speaks to Nazar and Shapednoise about their new project, Sentient_1.
Mariana Berezovska: Shapednoise is known for his masterful exploration of harsh techno and noisy electronics. The »sculptor of noise« is an eager collaborator with artists from different forms of »dis-comfortable« experimental music directions. Shapednoise has been willing to learn from his project partners and dive into their work, whether it’s bass, rap, extreme noise, footwork, or video art. It’s the first time Shapednoise and Nazar are collaborating as Sentient_1, for whom the radical use of bass, provocative rhythms, and rough kuduro is political and deeply personal. How did you get to know each other’s work, and what do you expect from this creative exchange?
Nazar: We first met a few years ago at a festival we played together in Eastern Europe. Nino knew about my work and introduced himself. From then on, we kept in touch, and I’ve spent a good amount of time listening to his discography. It’s been a mutual appreciation of our work that shares many similarities but still sounds totally different. We don’t really have an end goal for it. We just want to make tunes that can’t be easily categorized and that dictate the listener to lose control and move.
MB: Nazar, you are tightly connected to the associates of Hyperdub and the UK scene, the masters of bass, grime, drill, and dancehall. How does entering the Berlin experimental techno-focused territory and getting to know CTM’s crowd (both artists and audience) feel to you?
Nazar: It feels challenging but still exciting to me. The fact that I don’t have extensive knowledge and history of the genres prevalent in this scene gives me the freedom to playfully create new combinations without following unwritten rules.
MB: Nino, CTM is one of the most influential platforms for leftfield sound explorations. You’ve been working with CTM for many years now and have become inseparable from their annual line-up. How do you think the festival’s curation of sonic arts has evolved over the years, and how have your various performances and collaborations at CTM helped you develop your art?
Shapednoise: I think the festival has been able to push boundaries in music and multidisciplinary art, remaining an essential point of reference in the world of avant-gardism and experimentation. It’s interesting to see how they have been able to explore sonically new scenes from all corners of the globe over the years. My various performances and collaborations at CTM gave me more confidence to develop further contamination in my art and lead to innovation.
MB: This year, CTM’s acts and talks explore the theme of »Contact.« In the description of the theme, it says that »for many, the idea of contact is now associated with fear, anxiety, grief, the painful loss of closeness and exchange, or guilt.« Do you think that »hard« or »extreme« music and dance could help us exorcise fear from our bodies and minds?
Nazar: Yes, definitely. We believe our respecting styles already contribute to this. That is why our association happened naturally.
MB: How can music and exchange between artists and listeners/dancers encourage them to move past their fear of contact and interaction, find new strength, and be ready to act with courage again, both in music and art and just in everyday life?
Shapednoise: We believe that transparency is the driver of this exchange. The brand the artist carries often creates a gap between the listener and the artist, especially in the non-singing genre of music that we work in. But, artists share the same worries as any other beings. And especially Nazar has always been explicit about how the music he creates helped him move forward through his life. To get out of his comfort zone and go out into the world for that contact.
Supported by the SHAPE platform, which is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. Media partner: Borshch.
