13 Jul 2020

Brainwashed reviews GNOD and João Pais Filipe's “Faca de Fogo”


They say:

GNOD has made a career—a lifestyle—as a creative collective of musicians that weave together rhythmic, trance-inducing psychedelia and cacophonous pandemonium, unafraid of experimentation across genres. For this release, they connected with Portuguese experimental percussionist Joăo Pais Filipe after meeting up at the Milhões de Festa event in Barcelos, Portugal. This resulting experiment, improvised over 3 days and recorded in four at Joăo’s metal shop, was originally intended to premiere at the (now-socially distanced) 2020 Supersonic Festival in Birmingham, England. Overflowing with meditative tribal percussion and ritual, shamanic musical mantras, these four lengthy tracks ride a rollercoaster of moody atmospherics, Kraut-driven psychedelia and industrial mechanization, and will take an already widened musical mind for a ride.


Having followed GNOD for some time now, I look forward to their many varieties of sound exploration. WIth a fervent following, the collective has been mistaken for a quasi-religious assemblage by the uninitiated with album titles like InGnodWeTrust, but if any religion is present, it is of the divine in music. Pushing the boundaries of ambient, industrial, noise, and jungle, the group has a residency at The Islington Mill in Salford, UK that far exceeds sound to include light and art installations which serves as their creative workspace, as well as to house members. Their sound is genreless from album to album, generally freeform in production, yet with a consistent honoring of largely western-driven industrial sounds...

Read the rest here: Brainwashed

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