At 123 minutes and—in its physical form—three CDs long, Éons, the new album from Belgium’s Neptunian Maximalism, is unquestionably a massive work. Even so, the size and scale of the project—formed in 2018 by multi-instrumentalist Guillaume Cazalet and saxophonist Jean-Jacques Duerinckx—never feels unnecessary or extravagant as this aptly named collective uses the healthy runtime to explore heavy psych, tribal rhythms, free-jazz freakouts, meditative drone and the vast, shadowy spaces in between. Arriving in the wake of a four-song EP and a largely improvised live album that hinted at Neptunian Maximalism’s ambition, Éons fully delivers on those early promises. The sonic epic not only gives the band plenty of room to roam, but also follows a conceptual framework that imagines the end of Earth’s human-dominated anthropocene era and the onset of a “probocene” era, in which the planet is ruled by superior, intelligent elephants.
Accordingly, there are times when Éons roars like a herd of shaggy, stampeding beasts. But there are also sections of the album that evoke a fire-lit religious ritual (complete with chanting and ceremonial drums), and others that sound like Ascension-era John Coltrane enveloped in a bewitching swirl of black magick. The clanging lurch of “Lamasthu” brings to mind drone-metal masters Sunn O))); one track later, “Ptah Sokar Osiris” offers up a healthy dose of freewheeling, horn-charged groove that’s more aligned with a globally inspired band like Goat than with most drone music. It’s that dichotomy that makes Neptunian Maximalism so interesting: one minute, they’re a hulking ship scraping its metal sides on the way out of the harbor, and the next, they’re the weird interstellar dance party happening down in the hull. Perhaps calling them the Sunn Ra A)))rkestra is a little too on the nose.
Belgium's NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM (aka NNMM) is a community of “cultural engineers” with a variable line-up, mixing drone metal with spiritual free jazz and psychedelic music. The project was initiated in 2018 by multi-instrumentalist Guillaume Cazalet (Czlt, Jenny Torse, Aksu), who brought together veteran saxophonist Jean Jacques Duerinckx (Ze Zorgs) and two drummers, Sebastien Schmit (K-Branding) and Pierre Arese (Aksu). In 2020, Stephane FDL and Lukas Bouchenot took the drums. Reshma Goolamy (bass), Romain Martini (guitar), Alice Thiel (synths, guitar), Joaquin Bermudez (saz, setar), Didié Nietzche (soundscapes) and Leslie V. (black magic scenography) joined in 2019, thus changing the band into a real drone orchestra.
By exploring the evolution of the human species, NEPTUNIAN MAXMALISM question the future of the living on Earth, propitiating a feeling of acceptance for the conclusion of the so called "anthropocene" era and preparing us for the incoming “probocene” era, imagining our planet ruled by superior intelligent elephants after the end of humanity. As Guillaume Cazalet explains, “for certain scientists, if we hadn't rule the Earth, elephants were supposed to be at the top of the pyramid of terrestrial life.”
The ambitious album trilogy of “Éons” is a musical experience of gargantuan proportions where each chapter is part of a fascinating ritual, a cosmic mass of light and darkness recalling the works of SUNN O))), EARTH, ALUK TODOLO, ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE, SWANS, MOTORPSYCHO, SUN RA and the late JOHN COLTRANE.
The intoxicating bacchanal starts with “To The Earth (Aker Hu Benben)”, a heavy tribal music affair influenced by stoner metal, noise rock and free jazz. “It's a balance between sacred and profane, and resumes lots of human feelings or their consequences, such as love, war, hate, ritual dance, transmutation, strength, feminine/masculine juxtaposition, etc,”, says Cazalet.
With “To The Moon (Heka Khaibit Sekhem)” the band opts for a slightly different approach, surrealistic yet brutal, occasionally steering towards black-doom metal. Cazalet: “Here the rhythm section plays an important role, fueled by an obscure power that plunges the listener into a magic, occult trance; this album is characterized by shamanic invocations and summonings of the ancients by using animal-like growls and the homo-sapiens' proto-language as reconstructed by Pierre Lanchantin, an English researcher/archeologist from the University of Cambridge.”
The third and final chapter encompasses the interstellar meditations of “To The Sun (Ânkh Maât Sia)”, described by Cazalet as a solar drone opera: “We worked on the power of frequencies and tonality, chthonian deep vibrations and iridescent high lights by using huge amplified baritone sax and guitars, spectral soundscapes, antic cinematographic views and tribal percussions.”
Wrapped in a phantasmagoric painting by Japanese master Kaneko Tomiyuki, NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM's “Éons” is with no doubt the quintessential mystical and psychedelic journey of 2020.
credits
releases June 26, 2020
"Éons" line-up:
Guillaume Cazalet (Czlt) ::: Amplified bass and barytone guitar, bow, sitar, flute, trumpet & vocals
Jean Jacques Duerinckx ::: Amplified saxophone barytone and sopranino
Sebastien Schmit ::: Drums, percussions, gongs, vocals
Pierre Arese ::: Drums, percussions
Recorded by Guillaume Cazalet, with the help of Jean Jacques Duerinckx at HS63, Brussels, March 2018. Mixed and mastered by Guillaume Cazalet at Homo Sensibilis Sounds studio, Brussels, June 2018
Lyrics from Pierre Lanchantin’s Imaginary proto-languages
© Pierre Lanchantin, Homo Sapiens project (part of Marguerite Humeau’s FOXP2 exhibition, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2016) Machine Intelligence Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Cover art by KANEKO Tomiyuki, "Vajrabhairava", 2014
© KANEKO Tomiyuki Courtesy Mizuma Art Gallery.
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Cat. Nr. IVR133
