• Nihiloxica’s second album ‘Source of Denial’ takes aim at uk’s hostile Visa policy
• Nihiloxica’s new album ‘Source of Denial’ releases on 29th September on Crammed Discs.
• The album delves further into studio production, departing from the clinical feel of ‘Kaloli’ and further blurring the line between the acoustic and synthetic worlds.
• Extreme metal elements are thrown into the mixture of traditional Bugandan percussion and club sounds they’ve become synonymous with.
• The distorted, chaotic energy of the record is channelled into a direct critique of immigration policies in the UK and around the world.

Source of Denial is the second LP from Nihiloxica, the Bugandan techno outfit hailing from Kampala, Uganda. It comes after more than three long years since ‘Kaloli’, their acclaimed debut on Crammed Discs. The album points a (middle) finger at the hostile immigration and freedom of movement policies implemented in the UK, as well as across the world. Fuelled by their frustrations with this intentionally convoluted system, the group have produced their most cataclysmic effort to date.

Returning to the Nyege Nyege studio in Kampala where the band recorded their early EPs, the band tracked ‘Source of Denial’ over an intense month of sessions in early 2022. The cover art is emblazoned with an ultra-metallic new logo, echoing the growing presence of metal influences across the tracklisting, while the hi-vis, official-document styling wryly evokes the bureaucratic nightmare at the heart of the project. Tracks like ‘Asidi’ and ‘Baganga’ flirt with the dystopian, mechanical patterns and tonalities of djent godfathers Meshuggah, while the gargantuan synth line of the title track summons the spirit of an 8-string guitar, synthesised palm-mutes and all. This is all effortlessly compounded with the molotov cocktail of Bugandan ngoma (drums) and club sounds the group have become revered for. On tracks like ‘Olutobazzi’, ‘Postloya’ and ‘Trip Chug’, the drums themselves are reanimated and manipulated more than ever before, further blurring the line between tradition and techno.

The only spoken words we hear throughout the album, outside of studio outtake ‘Preloya’, are computer generated. They speak of application processes, character backgrounds, and accountability, blasted through crackled phone speakers. The effect is a Kafkaesque feedback loop; an avalanche of constant call tones, uncanny British accents and rigorous interrogative questioning. The frustrations are a problem the band, a defiantly global outfit, has faced continuously. A whole UK tour was cancelled in 2022, and recently, a UK show had to be performed with only three members due to problems with a certain conglomerate visa agency who “provide services” for the UK, as well as a growing number of countries.

“We wanted to create the sense of being in the endless, bureaucratic hell-hole of attempting to travel to a foreign country that deems itself superior to where you’re from. We’re focussing on the UK as that’s where we’ve had the most trouble, but the problem goes much, much further. In this system if you have a certain passport or have even visited a certain country then you’re an appropriate subject to be interrogated and insulted time and time again just to prove that you’re worthy to enter, and normally this involves proving you have a good enough reason to want to leave again! The arrogance of it is unbearable. This album was a way to express our disdain towards it… What exactly is the source of your denial? Your passport? Your bank balance? Your skin colour? You’ve paid huge sums of money to be thrown from one profit-driven “service centre” to another, each denying responsibility, each limiting your right to freedom of movement as a human being. Despite some other serious humanitarian shortcomings, Uganda accepts some of the highest numbers of refugees in the world. Meanwhile the UK is trying to send them away to Rwanda. That says it all.” - Nihiloxica

Nihiloxica will be touring ‘Source of Denial’ extensively throughout Europe and UK in July, October and November 2023, and again in spring 2024.

22/07 - Intermission Festival - Birmingham, UK
23/07 - Blue Dot Festival - Manchester, UK
30/07 - Womad Festival - Wiltshire, UK
06/10 - Dadadaba - San Sebastian, ES
07/10 - Razzmatazz - Barcelona, ES
11/10/23 - Carlisle, UK - The Brickyard
12/10 - The Rum Shack - Glasgow, UK
13/10 - The Voodoo Rooms - Edinburgh, UK
14/10 - Cobalt Studios - Newcastle, UK
19/10 - Strange Brew - Bristol, UK
20/10 - Jazz Cafe - London, UK
21/10 - The White Hotel - Manchester, UK
25/10 - Kabinet Muz - Brno, CZ
27/10 - Underdogs - Prague, CZ
28/10 - A4 - Bratislava, SK
31/10 - PMK - Innsbruck, AT
01/11 - G LiveLab - Tampere, FN
02/11 -  Korjaamo - Helsinki, FN
03/11 - Inkonst - Malmo, SW
04/11 - Alice - Copenhagen, DK
07/11/23 - Hamburg, DE - MS Stubnitz
09/11/23 - Berlin, DE - Supamolly
10/11 - Het Bos - Antwerp, BE
11/11 - Le Guess Who? - Utrecht, NL
17/11/23 - Lisbon, PT - Vale Perdido
18/11 - La Station - Paris, FR
19/11 - Wintercircus - Gent, BE


Rewind

Highly original, explosive band Nihiloxica was born in 2017, following the encounter in Kampala between two UK musicians (Spooky-J & pq) and four Ugandan percussionists from the Nilotoka Cultural Ensemble (Isa, Sally, Prince and Spyda). Their debut album Kaloli was acclaimed by the media (see below), and their spectacular appearances at major music festivals across Europe and the UK earned them legions of devoted fans. Released in 2021, the Kaloli Recycled EP saw them joining forces with some of the UK scene’s most unique purveyors of bass & extreme electronic music. The band’s name reflects the fact that one source of the Nile is situated near Kampala.

In the press

Nihiloxica are the best band on Earth right now (The Quietus, UK)

The new electronic African revolution. (Noisey, US)
 
Trippy Afro-electro drum battle… dangerously hypnotic…  (MOJO, UK)

One of electronic music’s most original and exciting acts (XLR8R, US)

Digital synths fizzing and rumbling around hypnotic, polyrhythmic grooves (Pitchfork, US)

Incredibly exhilarating. African electronic avant-garde (FAZE, DE)

Whirlwind, chaos, flux. Nihiloxica tear it up in a dark maelstrom of drums and techno. Album of the Week (SPEX, DE)

An apocalyptical debut album. Technically perfect, and aesthetically close to punk nihilism (Libération, FR)

The present and the future of modern African music have a name: Nihiloxica (RFI, FR)  

Nihilistic abstractions, menacing synthetic vibrations and tachycardia-inducing beats (Télérama, FR)

Plunges the listener into a trance, fusing the sound of Ugandan traditional dance and English basement clubs (Trax, FR)    

Nihiloxica’s potent, polyrhythmic hallucinations don’t charm so much as ensnare and transfix.  (PAN M 360, Canada)