Crammed Discs are happy to present the debut album by innovative, exciting French/Chilean band Nova Materia.

Nova Materia’s powerful, hypnotic music incorporates eerie sounds generated by raw and mineral materials (metal, rocks etc) to create tracks that are in turn hyper-rhythmical and dreamy, poised between postpunk rock and electronic dance music.  The band’s sound is already making headway in festivals & clubs as well as in the visual arts & performance communities.

Nova Materia is a duet formed by Caroline Chaspoul from France and Eduardo Henriquez from Chile. With them, nothing is usual: their instruments are steel tubes, iron plates,  stones that get scraped or projected unto metal surfaces, guitars positioned horizontally and struck with mallets, as well as an array of electronic gear. They sing, chant or whisper mysterious lyrics and slogans (in French, English, Spanish and in imaginary tongues), which contribute to creating their own primal and futuristic mythology.

Nova Materia was born three years ago from the ashes of Panico, the alternative rock band created in Chili during the effervescent period that followed the end of the dictature, and with which Caroline et Eduardo toured around the globe and released several albums. After a cathartic experience in the Atacama desert, the band suddenly split. Caroline & Eduardo settled in Paris, formed Nova Materia, released two EPs (produced a.o. in collaboration with French producer Chloé and her Kill The DJ label), and have now joined the likes of Acid Arab, Konono N°1, Juana Molina, Yasmine Hamdan and Matias Aguayo on the Crammed Discs roster.

Nova Materia recorded this debut album in their Parisian studio. It’s ominously titled It Comes and, from the first seconds of its opening track, the listener is drawn into a parallel world in which he soon gets delightfully lost, in the course of ten tracks alternating between hallucinatory atmospheres and driving beats.   

The album features a handful of guests, including DJ/producer Chloé Thévenin, Japanese vocalist Narumi Hérisson (from Tristesse Contemporaine) and producer Jérôme “Blackjoy” Caron, who worked on three tracks. The mix was entrusted with Gregory Bauchau (who has mixed tracks for Aksak Maboul, Yasmine Hamdan and Konono N°1).

The cover photos were created by Camille Vivier, whose photographic work is highly regarded in the worlds of visual arts and fashion, and is regularly exhibited around the world.

Another notable aspect of the band’s work is their multimedia activity. They’re regularly composing music for feature films (a.o. by Nabil Ayouch, Gael Garcia Bernal etc) and for brands. They recently collaborated with renowned writer Tristan Garcia to create a literary/musical 60-minute piece for national radio France Culture, entitled “From The Stones’ Viewpoint”.

A first single and music video entitled Nov Power has just come out. The album will be released on 28 September 2018, and the band will be playing a series of release shows in the autumn (including Brussels on Sept 28 and Paris on Dec 12), before touring across Europe and South America throughout 2019.



Initial reactions:

Welcome to Nova Materia. A moniker worn as a warning this music will take you some place unknown. (Republic of Music, UK)

They repurpose minerals and metals – elements often tied to experimental genres – to create textures that redefine the vocabulary of pop music. Futuristic and primal. (Remezcla, USA)

Like a two-headed hydra feeding off the components of our environment, Nova Materia explores the materials in our mineral and industrial era to create a musical world which is both abrasive and ecstatic. (Trax, FR)

One of the most spectacular duets of the circuit…. watch them soon onstage turning rock clubs into voodoo dance floors. (Gonzaï, FR)