L’interview de Noise Jihad, réalisée par une auteure indonésienne est en anglais. En accord avec cet aspect international et en vue de la rendre accessible aux lecteurs et publics concernés, nous avons décidé de la laisser en langue originale. Pour les moins anglophones d’entre vous, en voici un court extrait qu’on a traduit en français.

Il est 3 heures du matin, il pleut dehors, c’est une soiré déprimante, une soirée propice aux grandes questions existentielles, on relit Camus, Sartre et finalement on se demande… Comment un genre aussi atypique et fermé que la « harsh noise » évolue-t- il ces dernier temps? Qu’est ce qui motive les artistes qui composent cette scène ?

Si certains musiciens portent des influences politiques, d’autres sont simplement fascinés par la découverte de nouveaux sons. Il y a trois mois, nous avons découvert un superbe filon en terme de noise et de power electronics, une nouvelle terre d’exploration pour les plus courageux d’entre nous, le nom de cette jungle ? « Noise Jihad ». Tout a commencé quand nous sommes tombés sur ce post facebook.

“ WAR IN YOUR HEADS Vol.I

Looking for projects for first part of numbered compilations series! Harsh noise, ambient, black, punk, grind, electronics, sludge and same are welcome!”

Ce message à retenu notre attention. Nous nous sommes donc aventuré dans la compilation « War in Your Heads » qui fait partie d’un projet d’archivage du nom de « Noise Jihad », ce projet existe depuis quelques années. En explorant le bandcamp de Noise Jihad nous avons trouvé de nombreuses références à des thèmes comme la guerre, le djihadisme, la philosophie islamique autant dans l’imagerie que la musique et les titres utilisées. Nous avons aussi découvert des centaines d’artistes ayant des provenances extrêmement diverses (Afrique, Europe, Asie ,etc). Piqué dans notre curiosité nous avons voulu connaitre l’histoire derrière ce projet virtuel. Qui sont les personnes derrière « Noise Jihad », quelles sont leurs motivations, et surtout pourquoi autant de référence à la guerre et à la religion ?

Afin d’en savoir plus nous avons discuté par message avec « Alex Noise » aka Nasir al Katb ibn Majeed aka Noise Jihad, qui gère ce gigantesque projet tout seul depuis la Russie.

English version

How does harsh noise evolve these days, for such a typical genre that only the braveheart would listen. Some of the artists carry political inflictions, some fascinated to discover “new sounds”, some exist to shock everyone or themselves, some just want to make some, well, noise. Couple of months ago we discovered barren land of harsh noise/power electronics online groups (here, here, or here, we sure there are a bunch of others) that seem like a savanna for the outsiders. Here in this group we can discover a bunch of noise artists declaring their album releases. Once we came across a post announcing:

“WAR IN YOUR HEADS Vol. I

Looking for projects for the first part of numbered compilations series! Harsh noise, ambient, black, punk, grind, electronics, sludge and same are welcome!”

That somehow struck our attention. We ventured around and discover that this “War in Your Heads” compilation series is a part of harsh noise archiving project called Noise Jihad that has been going on for years. In Noise Jihad bandcamp we can find other projects with similar themes (war, jihadism, Islamic philosophy) as well as huge compilations that featured real obscure self-released harsh noise artists from all around the world. We are intrigued to know the story behind this virtual movement. Who are the people behind this project? What are their motives? What’s their story?

Last week we set up time to talk to the man behind the project, Alex Noise aka Nasir al-Katb ibn-Majeed aka Noise Jihad, who’s surprisingly manages all of this massive and chaotic project by himself from Russia.

FEV: Fort et Viril

AN: Alex Noise

FEV:   Hey Alex, thanks a lot for your time. Your work is crazy and overwhelming. What’s the story behind Noise Jihad project?

AN:    Hey thanks, it is a pleasure to share it with you. The ‘ground zero’ of Noise Jihad began the 10 of April, 2013. It began very spontaneously, without specific ideas or  plans. I felt an urge to make music and I needed some platform to stream my art. I  had AZAWAD Netlabel at the early time with Noise Jihad, but now it’s over.

FEV:  What draws you into harsh noise actually?

AN:   Its simplicity. Simple thing to do and listen. I don’t know what’s better for me at this moment. As you know, all things in there are just…noise. Nothing is considered as an excesse. That’s what I meant when I said ‘noise is simple’.

FEV:  Why noise and Islamic philosophy? It’s a really interesting and weird combination.

AN:   I am guided  by the same thought. Interesting and weird combination. Noise Jihad is some kind of a mask for me. I prefer to show my art more curved, curious and strange.

FEV: Are you into musical projects like Muslimgauze, Vatican Shadow, Prurient ?

AN: Muslimgauze? I heard of them, but it’s not my sound. Same as Vatican Shadow. And Prurient is the greatest! But my favourites are Bull Of Heaven and Enbilulugugal. The former has a fill of madness in their releases with extreme song duration (12 hours long), meanwhile the latter gives a crazy sound and obscure concept where fun and insanity collides.

FEV:  Those are really intense musical projects, indeed. We are asking such questions because Noise Jihad has the same kind of strong or extreme aesthetics in itself. We can sense that a lot of people might think you are a jihadist.

AN:  Exactly. First question that I heard/read regarding Noise Jihad is « Are you a Muslim? » . The answer is always no. I am just interested in Near East and Islamic Philosophy and nothing more. I’m a regular guy. I am not a muslim, even a jihadist.

FEV: Do you think there are any politicals revendications in the harsh noise scene in general? 

AN:  The best way to self-express is through art. If somebody is embedding politics, I prefer keeping him out.

FEV: What are your inspirations, though? Both in Islamic philosophy and noise artists?

AN:  Inspiration in Islamic philosophy, actually this is not entirely applied. First stage of my inspiration comes from the visual, like cover-arts, album and track names. I create the artwork earlier than the track most of the time.

I follow the visual. In this case, it is islamic philosophy and war imageries that happened to inspire me. For artists – at first  it was Alexey Glukhov’s Шариатский Суд and some projects of my friends (such as Disgorged Faeces, Sleep Column). Now I have no musical inspiration.

FEV: How is your process of making music or art, what tool/instrument do you use?

AN: Cool Edit Pro 2. No analogue instruments or samples. All sounds are coming from white/pink noises and sinewaves with delay/echo processions. Noise from emptiness, in fact.

There are releases where i introduce tracks from another bands (e.g ‘Noise Jihad – Prepare To Jihad’ for Depressive Years – Inmense Emotional Pain ) and I also do remixes of course. In general that’s how I proceed in Noise Jihad. I have a few projects with another way recording.

FEV: Do you somehow approach each track in different treatment/process?

AN:  No I don’t. I cutting some shorts parts with intense chaotical repetitions, stretching, recompiling the cutted parts, pitching, reverbing, etc.

FEV: What was the most extreme (or just simply your favorite) process among all of your releases? How was that process? Knowing that you use white noise/pink noises mainly as your input.

AN:  The first thing that came into my mind is the Coffee & Hookah album (Dead In Mars Netlabel, 2014). There are two tracks with extremely long duration, 22h 42m and 23h 28m respectively. They were processed by 2 differents programs with an exhausting rendering process.

The second release that came into my mind is الجن (al-Jinn) (Tales About Nothing Netlabel, 2013). It was recorded with a stereo mix from Cool Edit Pro , a sinewave was playing by « preview » and then I changed the duration and frequency fields at the same time of the track’s recording. Not to mention about the fastest recorded and released albums from Noise Jihad and sides.

FEV: Those are crazy releases. And from there alone, I discovered bunch of Russian gems. You said you have another projects beside Noise Jihad, what are those?

AN:  Hargeysa, Исламское Состояние, Circle Of Tasawwuf and Makruh Pitch and 71 Chittagong, Mughal Empire TV Station, Yawm ‘Arafah. They all are sound experiments, with different concepts.

FEV: What about Noise Jihad Compilations. You’re also open for submission for this compilation. Can you tell us about it?

A5: The aim of the the compilations are to communicate, socialize and maintain good relations. The latest compilation series from Noise Jihad is War In Your Heads – no genre, no specific locations or other limits.

I got submissions from Canada, Mexico, France, Chile, Russia, Brazil, Ukraine, Indonesia, USA, Slovenia, Australia, Romania, Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, Poland, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Norway, Greenland. The only filter is just my personal taste. To be honest, I am amazed with the enthusiasm. I had never filled up a compilation with 40-50 tracks in a week. I feel grateful for everyone who supported it!

FEV:  Are you actively in contact and in collaboration with another noise artists? Can you tell us your opinion about the scene itself ?

AN:  Maybe so, but I can’t answer you straightly. I keep in touch with a few noise artists. I had 3 projects with my friend who’s  also a good noise artist (A. Uvarov), which were Yawm ‘Arafah,  71 Chittagong, and Mughal Empire TV Station. Sometimes I record and release my songs under Immoral Basement Records(IBR) and Wall Noise Action(WNA).  I maintained the contact with the IBR guy, and Ivan Sandakov from WNA even since the times Noise Jihad had not existed yet.

At the moment, I am collaborating with Ivan Veniosov from Obscure Heaven and im in touch with Ivan Cc from Ecran and RusZUD Netlabels. But here is the important thing to keep in mind: theany has no homogeneity and does not depend of the country not. Its just a lot of groups crossing each others with no single identity.

People liking and supporting my art, it is more than enough to begin with. I like to develop my relations, of course, and I wish to develop it more, but this isn’t really my first aim.

FEV: Still concerning the scene, does these activities involve real life movement or are you managing them only virtually.

AN: I have virtual movement only. Harsh noise was really huge in Russia. That is actually considered as ‘near’ in Russia. Cities like Novosibirsk or Omsk, for example, are located thousands miles away from the big cities. That is one of the main reasons why I am leading just this web activity. Another reason is, this is the part of Noise Jihad’s concept, I made no physical releases whatsoever from this project.

FEV: Great, I think we’ve covered everything. Thanks a lot for your time and your thoughts. Good luck for your projects!

AN: Glad talking with you. It was an interesting polylogue. Thank you for having me, mates.

Interview et article par Fitrisia Indah