Nous Alpha is the collaboration between multi- instrumentalist Christopher Bono (Ghost Against Ghost, Bardo, Nous) and noisemaker/famed producer Gareth Jones (Spiritual Friendship, Grizzly Bear, Depeche Mode, WIRE). The new album is called A Walk In The Woods and will be out on May 7th release via Our Silent Canvas. Pre-order is available here. We Introduced them with the tracks “Fibonacci Failure” and “Fox Hollow“.
“We had some specific ideas about this second album,” says Christopher. “We decided we’d work on a tempo grid this time around, rather than being so very freeform in our approach, and that we’d limit the length of the songs.”
According to the press release, Working this way made the sessions for A Walk In The Woods more electronic than its predecessor. Where ‘Without Falsehood’ used acoustic textures and familiar instrumentation, ‘A Walk In The Woods’ abandons those elements and adds synth passages, evolving melodies and skeletal, hypnotic rhythms.
Naturalistic elements, used as the basis of what could be called organic improvisation, were created by performing with found objects in the dense woods of the nearby Catskill Mountains, and the outbuildings around the studio. These foraged fragments form the seeds from which each track grew.
Today we have the pleasure to share a new track called “Golden Lemon“. The official video was created by Berlin based psychedelic visual artist Ployz. They explain:
“This is one of three tracks built around vocals. We used one word, “Love”, the wonderful monosyllabic, supreme mental formation and state of being. In the midst of one of our later jams at the top of the mountain, we stood over the edge and started spontaneously chanting words, some of which became essential elements of other tracks. Gareth intuitively chanted “Love” and Christopher echoed him. The spontaneous chanting was followed by self-consciousness judgements about whether the use of this extremely common word was too trite. But the truth is, contemplation on Love is immeasurable, boundless, all-important, and certainly necessary in these times, so we decided to use it.”
Watch it below.