Nôze - Songs on the Rocks
Nicolas Sfintescu and his friend Ezechiel Pailhes aka Nôze will release a new album called “Songs on the Rocks” on Get Physical on April 25, 2008.
United by a shared love of pianos, straw hats and stripping down to the waist in public, Ezechiel and Nicolas have been perpetrating various acts of musical mirth and mischief since 2004.
A significant landmark was their performance at 2005’s Sonar Festival, which saw the band unleash their unique brand of showmanship on the unsuspecting throngs. Since then, Nôze have made a habit of exhilarating and scandalising audiences all over the world with these now legendary live shows: live shows based around their trusty Korg MS20 and M1s, an incredibly large mixing desk and, of course, their own vocals – which emit sweet harmony and demented, guttural growls with equal prowess. Indeed, Nôze are a truly remarkable face-to-face proposition, capable of turning any club into an ecstatic sweatpit at the drop of a straw hat. In 2006 they were voted the third hottest live act on the planet by De:Bug magazine. They should have been first, but you know…
However, there is more to Nôze than thumping techno rhythms, dancefloor-smashing basslines and a man wailing and growling like a TCP-afflicted Tom Waits. No, really, there is! Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Songs On The Rocks, the third album by Nôze and without a doubt their most musical and varied offering yet.
Last year saw Nôze’s reputation soar, thanks to the heart-rending club smash that was ‘Remember Love’ (declared no. 1 techno track of the year, not to mention “best closing-time singalong ever”, by Pitchfork). ‘Remember Love’, featured on Songs On The Rocks, the second album since experimental debut Craft Sounds And Voices (2005) and the follow-up to 2006’s How To Dance, which reflected those energetic live sets and the clubbier side to Nôze’s sound. For Songs On The Rocks, Nôze show off the full range of their talents: it’s a more song-based and instrumentally rich affair than its predecessors – as usual, Nicolas and Ezechiel worked with a number of different musicians, especially Thibaut Frisoni (guitars) and Alexandre Authelain (clarinets and saxophones) - but it is nonetheless underpinned by formidable electronic production that always keeps the dancefloor in mind.
