Hostile Surgery is a dark-ambient-industrial-noise project. It isn’t your pure harsh wall of noise, some reviews described it as being minimal noise and it is very close to what I’m working: a weird missing link between ambient and noise.
2.So far you have released 2 albums, musically how do they both differ from each other?
The first album ‘The Day Called X’ is almost narrative, with its apocalyptic mood and visuals. It’s heavy on drone and closer to an ambient soundtrack with a total absence of beat. It’s mostly about pacing and torturing existing sounds and field recordings. It sounds chaotic, but it’s a very concrete and mathematical approach to music.
On the new record, MIDNIGHT WOUNDS, the sound is dirtier, but there is a low ritualistic beat that pulses through each track that I expanded with instruments. It relies more on a sense of music than building a sound.
3.What are some of the concepts and images you bring out with your musical style?
I’m a film-junkie and an experimental video-maker with a taste for horror and apocalypse. I find a kind of solace in these kinds of stories. The first album was about a kind of apocalypse. I must say that working on the clips during the confinement was tough. On one side I had more time to work on it, on the other it induced anxiety with all that was (and still is) going around.
While working on MIDNIGHT WOUNDS needed to escape the heavy lengthy drones for something more paced, thus the shorter tracks and the word MIDNIGHT (opposed to the DAY) and it built around these almost mantra like rhythms laced in witchy sounds. An album to listen late at night close to a fire.
4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Hostile Surgery'?
My experimental film project is title Mondo Corretto and I was looking for a name that also held a weird association and a flavor that would find its place in the Dark-Industrial scene. Because of my way to work on sounds, I was mostly looking on medical terms, when I stepped on “Hostile Surgery” which instantly fitted.
5.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?
For Hostile Surgery I start working on the music and the clips came afterwards. MIDNIGHT WOUNDS relying more on beats, I wanted to visualize it with these animated hypnotic sound waves. Of course, there is an obvious hint to that legendary cover of Joy Division’s Unknown pleasures.
6.With this project you record everything by yourself, are you open to working with other musicians or do you prefer to work solo?
Absolutely! It is even one of the main reasons I started Hostile Surgery.
The first three albums are more about setting a ground, but on the ABRASION, the 2nd track from MIDNIGHT WOUNDS, you already have that beautiful and frightening eerie laughter performed by the amazing Karla Schnikov that really sets the occult feel of the album. It’s short, but we are planning to work around that kind of sound and feel for an album.
There is a split in the works with one of my favorite noise artists EARTHFLESH. His sound is as harsh as it is refined.
7.Are you open to doing any live performances with this musical project?
Yes, but it’s still a stretch. I could easily be deejaying sample of my works, but the idea doesn’t satisfy me. I need to extend the performative aspects of my music before making that step.
8.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of industrial, noise and experimental?
It’s a beautiful community. I started making music because I couldn’t find the right soundtracks to my experimental films, when I was contacted by the Parisian label MURMURE INTEMPOREL, specialized in experimental music, for releasing an album. I hardly saw myself as a musician at that times, but the reception was way above all expectations.
And to be able to release MIDNIGHT WOUNDS with BASEMENT CORNER EMISSIONS just feels delirious. I’m a huge fan of that label and never thought to work with Ken Jamison, also the man behind CREPUSCULAR ENTITY and other amazing music projects.
9.Where do you see yourself heading into as a musician during the future?
Mostly being able to free all these albums that are already roaming in my head. It’s all about finding the right time to do that with the right people.
10.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
I grew up listening a lot to punk-rock and new-wave-goth with some Einstürzende Neubauten, Bauhaus, The Cure, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Godflesh, etc. but I love music and isn’t a style I don’t listen to, then there was that slap I felt when I stumbled on the first Naked City album, which combined my love for movie soundtracks, jazz and hardcore.
As a closer influence there would be Chu Ishikawa, Ben Frost, Puce Mary, Tim Hecker and Thomas Köner and these times I’m a lot into EARTHFLESH and I’m just tripping on The Greatest Generation by Miss Terra Bates.
11.Does Occultism play any role in your music?
Not directly. I’ve read a lot about it and it’s fascinating, but my music is more about the feel of the occult. It’s more about listening to the wolves howl at night than being one.
12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
Thank you for the opportunity to make this interview and supporting Hostile Surgery on DarkUndergroundMusicZine, keep it strange and dark!
- On BASEMENT CORNER EMISSIONS: https://basementcorner.bandcamp.com/album/midnight-wounds
- On Hostile Surgery: https://hostilesurgery.bandcamp.com/album/midnight-wounds
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