Uniting for the project Noble Rot, Toronto musicians Alex Edkins of Metz and Graham Walsh of Holy Fuck, both of whom’s artistic careers also extend further, crafted an infectiously catchy album of repetitious jams. Utilizing both a palette of ambience and more traditional rock instrumentation in the mix, their new album, Heavenly Bodies, Repetition, Control, is a March release from Joyful Noise Recordings.
Elements of the sonic venture, which spans eight tracks, often repeat and sometimes build up into grand finales, like a section helping close the album, although the songs aren’t exclusively focused there. The record, which hinges in part on warm synths and guitars, feels consistently expansive, proving atmospheric in how the heft of the songs fills the metaphorical room.
You could imagine these tracks as reflecting a lot of power. Rhythmically emphasizing the control referenced in the record’s title, that power seems moderated by ambition—the sort of ambition where you just know that you’re getting ahead, whatever on earth it is you’re specifically doing, which for these musicians was remarkably wide-ranging creativity.
Heavenly Bodies, Repetition, Control communicates a kind of confidence, sticking to a mostly moderate pace and centering on what feels like sonic stability. It’s chill but perhaps deliciously disorienting if you immerse yourself in the psychological arc. Finding adept reflection here are those points of quiet, personal contemplation when a moment seems to somehow extend indefinitely while the wonder of human experience suddenly adds an existential slant to what you were meditating upon.
If that burst of description didn’t already indicate as much, it’s rather easy to hear the album in cinematic terms, as though it were a soundtrack to a surreal and sometimes comedic flick defined in its cinematography by quick zooms into people’s expressions. It’s rich and unpredictable.
Below, see what Edkins and Walsh have to say about Noble Rot and Heavenly Bodies, Repetition, Control, from keeping things fun to the welcome surprise of the record coming out at all.
The new album from Noble Rot, Heavenly Bodies, Repetition, Control, provides a rather immersive experience. Whether contemplating just you guys or folks who might eventually hear it after a release, did you really consider the overall listening experience when putting the songs together?
Walsh: Definitely more seeing where things went, for sure. A lot of those songs we worked on without the idea of knowing we were going to be making a record. We just kind of got into the studio and were fucking around and making music for no purpose other than just making music. And then as more ideas started fleshing out and becoming songs, then it was like, yeah, I think we got a record here. And then we finished it and then started thinking about the greater picture. But certainly from the beginning there was no plan.
Edkins: At first it was fully just having a good time and trying to make something that we both liked. And then I do think that when it came time to sequencing an album and stuff that we were both on the same page, where it was like, well, we definitely don’t want it to be your average thing. We want it to be like a bit of a journey. Including ambient pieces with more song-like pieces and having all that live together was definitely kind of an exciting idea, but we never discussed that off the top, that’s for sure.
In the studio, do you feel like having the time and space to really just do whatever you wanted had a lot of impact on how the eventual record took shape?
Walsh: Yeah, for sure. Personally speaking, I’m fortunate because I’ve always had access to studios. I work at studios and stuff, but I’ve always relished in the idea of taking my time and using the studio as a tool to just figure out where ideas should go and all that sort of stuff. So, from my end, yeah, for sure.
Edkins: I was like a kid in a candy store, right? We went into our friend’s studio at night, and then someone would come up with an idea, and then the next person would kind of look around, and there’d be, like, 20 synths, or there’d be all this percussion, or there’d be a bunch of guitars on the wall or pedals or whatever. And so it would spark an idea like that, right? Like, it was this very fluid thing, like we’re running around, kind of running around, grabbing things to plug in when someone else came up with an idea. It was super fun.
With Noble Rot, any number of genre comparisons could probably be made, but did you feel particularly spurred creatively at any point of crafting these songs by any big themes?
Edkins: We were sampling things, like—I would say Graham had a little record player, and he’d dig through records and then slow them down and totally annihilate them or something. And that would be inspiring, and that would take us on a trip, right? But I don’t know, there was, like, zero idea of what this would be. And we initially got together to make music for films. And so it was more like scoring a piece, a film, and then these songs came from that world. But then also, like, I don’t know what is the percentage of where certain ideas come from or even where the inspiration came from. It’s just, like, flowing out.
Walsh: We initially got together to make music for no purpose, really. So you’re just kind of following anything, really—any sound, and to go back to the kid in the candy store analogy, just seeing where things take you. There’s no expectation for where this thing should go. I think out of that, we’re both inspired by other types of music that goes beyond the bands that we play in. So we have a lot of inspiration, take a lot of inspiration from a lot of different things. There’s these weird, pastoral, non-linear pieces that came about. And then, naturally, I was thinking about this the other day, our usual songwriting brains would kick in, kicked in at some point, where, you know, there’d be a weird modular synth loop. And then Alex laid a drumbeat down to it, and then you’re like, OK, this sounds like a song. And then that’s when I think singing started coming into the fray, which is good. That’s just where inspiration took us.
Edkins: I think one more thing to add to that thought is that we had this arrangement where we would meet up, almost like a weekly thing. We would meet up, and we’d meet up in the studio. So if you meet, if you just make time, and you say, “I’m going to spend this many hours in the studio,” then something’s going to happen. That was sort of the cool thing about it. It was like a date, where we’d be like, OK, I’ll see you there. And then we know some sort of music will be made, but that’s really all we knew. We didn’t know what kind, so it was just like a fun thing to look forward to and see what happened.
As for bringing this music to the world, how did Noble Rot make the connection with Joyful Noise Recordings?
Walsh: That was a random occurrence because Alex sent a song to Jasamine (White-Gluz) from No Joy to sing on because we were just again, like, no expectations; let’s just get some friends in to help do stuff on these things. And Alex sent her all the songs, and I think she just found, from what she says, you just couldn’t stop listening to it all. And then, she’s on Joyful Noise Recordings, and they asked her to contribute to their White Label Series where they release limited edition, vinyl versions of unreleased records and put them out in the world. And so, we were lucky that she picked our thing. So that’s how that whole relationship came to be. It was like, do you want Joyful Noise to put this out? Oh, sure, OK—pretty cool! We were just making stuff. This is sort of how the world works. You just do stuff and see what happens. And sometimes things don’t happen, but sometimes things do happen. It’s good.
Edkins: It was totally just luck, coincidence, serendipity, I think. During the pandemic when I did the Weird Nightmare record, I was really into this idea of reaching out to people and collaborating, and it brought a real sense of fun to the project. And this was—I think we were both in that mindset too. So, you know, Graham reaches out to Colin Newman. We’re like, oh that’s a fat chance that that’s going to happen. But it happened, you know? I think making sure that what we’re doing was just fun before anything, and exciting. And it’s exciting when you have new people’s voices and sounds and approach to music involved with your music. I think you can get stuck doing what you’re used to, and get in a rut a little bit. So this was just us being really open to everything and anyone. I mean, not anyone, but we were lucky enough to get people who we really like musically to be a part of it.
As for the content of the music, did you try and cultivate a sense of control in the rhythms, whether earlier or later in putting all these things together? The songs seem to nicely match the album’s title.
Walsh: I like the juxtaposition of like—I think there’s the rhythms, the control and holding thing. When something like that’s holding things together, there’s a wonderful foundation into which you can let loose, and have chaos, and have it all make sense. So I like it when that happens a lot. And when you have a solid, repetitious, repeating foundation, and then blending that with sort of chaotic events and maybe some controlled chaos—I think when those two things meet, it’s a wonderful place to be, personally. Alex came up with the album title; I think it fit perfect for the tapestry that we wove.
Do you tend to feel like repetitious styles are a fun challenge to get around or more just a horizon of possibilities?
Walsh: Well, for me, it’s a horizon of possibilities. When I listen to songs, it’s nice to be transported to a place, and maybe repetition is very meditative, you know? I mean, you don’t want things to be boring. You want it to be a journey. But, I do think it’s kind of a nice place to be, and therefore a world of discovery. To answer the question, that’s how I feel. Techno music is a perfect example for that, which I love. It’s built on repetition and enveloping yourself in that world, and then in discovering the nuance within there.
Edkins: You can really get lost in something even though it’s not changing. Things like dance music or what people call krautrock or even just vocal music that’s chant-based and stuff like that. Like all of that stuff is just interesting to us. And, it’s the kind of thing that gets into the world of true psychedelia, but also can be profoundly moving in a type of way where maybe tighter arrangements for songs—Like, that’s an amazing craft as well. I love that. I love when someone’s put together the perfect, two-and-a-half minute song, but then I also can really get into that whole idea of the beat and the rhythm being the foundation and just turning over on itself.
It just gives you a perfect palette to paint on. I mean that sounds a little bit over the top, but to make sounds on. That was always a constant with this record, was that we’d have some kind of pulsing, if it was a modular synth from Graham, or if it was a kick drum, or if it was a beat. That was just sort of the essence of what we wanted to do, I think, to have the rhythm be interesting and also something you can just feel good listening to for a long period of time.
Photo courtesy of Noble Rot
