Ni by Phicus

I always considered Phicus mainly a “live band”. I don’t mean it in the “they tour non-stop” way, but in relation to the way the language and aesthetic of the band is developed. All of the previous albums represent some sort of attempt to fixate the kind of music we were doing live at that particular time, and a chance to explore deeper those materials and vocabulary.

Plom was an attempt to recreate in the studio the specific style of group improvisation we’ve been doing for more than a year in our rehearsals and live sets. Both K(n)ot and Spumpflegende were the result of our playing live with Ilia and Martin. We started to go for a much noisier and “doomy” sounding live sets, so there originated the idea of Solid. And after performing live several times in huge resonating spaces (and with no drum set or amplification) it just felt natural to book a studio and record what ended up being Liquid.

The genesis of Ni seems to be the absolute reversal. After the pandemic just paralyzed our activities, other projects occupied much of our headspace and our lives made it difficult to keep with our regular rehearsal routine (that we kept at least weekly for years), Phicus lost much of its raison d’etre. Then came the offer of recording a new album live at Convent de Sant Agustí (one of our favorite rooms in our hometown) with Pablo Miranda (one of our favorite engineers, and a close friend), with a relatively short time to prepare for it. So, instead of figuring out how to book a small tour in order to prepare for the session or do some intensive rehearsal routine, we just decided to take the opposite route.

For the first time, I wrote a composition for Phicus (a band that never before had any fixed material) trying to recontextualize and develop further the vocabulary explored in our Liquid album, and we just used the very limited time we had for rehearsal to fix all the little details and try to make it our own.

The massive reverb of the space, Ferran’s amp dying during soundcheck, myself getting hurt in the arm the day before unloading from another gig, Vasco carrying his huge bell set to the Convent… it was amazing, and incredibly fun, and I honestly think the music is great.
--Àlex Reviriego

experimental music label /// est. 2020 /// submissions are currently CLOSED

email: nat@triptickstapes.com

Distribution:
Tobira Records (JP)
Squidco (US)

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