Nous Alpha

‘A Walk In The Woods’ is the second album by Nous Alpha, a collaboration between multi- instrumentalist <a href="spotify:artist:5IL7R9z37LCnpIu3QFJ4vz" data-name="Christopher Bono">Christopher Bono</a> (<a href="spotify:artist:3kekIPWkSOIfesmlmX8T3a" data-name="Ghost Against Ghost">Ghost Against Ghost</a>, Bardo (album), Nous) &amp; noisemaker <a href="spotify:artist:1W9zmk9JQsQaKSpphFHkUV" data-name="Gareth Jones">Gareth Jones</a> (<a href="spotify:artist:6Bamei0gAP91I2pj7gVM5g" data-name="Spiritual Friendship">Spiritual Friendship</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:2Jv5eshHtLycR6R8KQCdc4" data-name="Grizzly Bear">Grizzly Bear</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:762310PdDnwsDxAQxzQkfX" data-name="Depeche Mode">Depeche Mode</a>). Like the immersive ‘Without Falsehood,’ their debut album, ‘A Walk In The Woods’ was created at Our Silent Canvas’ converted barn studio in the Catskill mountains during Fall 2019.

Nous Alpha is a partnership almost five years in the making, beginning when Christopher asked Gareth to help mix two tracks for his project Ghost Against Ghost, which appeared on the 2017 album ‘still love’.

Naturalistic elements, used as the basis of what could be called organic improvisation, were created by performing with found objects in the dense woods of the nearby Catskill Mountains, and the outbuildings around the studio. These foraged fragments form the seeds from which each track grew: stones and rocks are the foundation of beats across the whole record; a tranquil pond provides the sonic jumping-off point for the noisy “Blackwater”; “Bike Wheels” uses distinctive mechanical sounds of a bicycle as its base layer.

The result of their constraints, discipline and ritualistic approach to the creative process is a body of work steeped in harmony and balance – of beauty and melancholy, of technology and nature, and of two like-minded spiritual beings in creative lockstep with each other. It is an album that is utterly unpredictable.