There is a great sense of hollowed longing in the sound of NPCEDE.
Angry, disaffected and detached with a select few euphoric moments, their music is a pervasive mix of industrial, noise, post-punk and melancholic EDM, representing a mix of rap in the vein of slowthai and a more acidic, garage iteration of Death Grips.
All this is easily mixed and balanced by the heightened energy of the trio, featuring brothers Victor and Roy Moore and childhood friend Zac Hellyer.
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Recent performances at The Eighty Six Festival and SXSW Sydney have quickly solidified their reputation for wild, unkempt performances. Their lyrics and aesthetics pull from the hypersexuality of the internet to the sensory overwhelm of hyperpop.
Although, according to Roy, the origins of the band could not have been more unplanned. “The genesis of the band basically came out of necessity. We were at a house party where we would perform a DJ set, but neither of us could DJ, so we spliced together a 45-minute song on Logic, put it on a USB and LARP-ed as DJs while we played the guitar over the top.”
Victor adds, “We got asked to do a show from these DJ sets. We didn’t have anything aside from some industrial beats. We wrote eight tracks for this one show and we had three months to do it.”
“On top of that, we were all learning to actually play our instruments,” says Roy.
“On the production end, we would start off with beats and flesh out an idea from that – slowly build that up and retroactively learn to play it live, rather than jamming it out,” says Victor. “During that time, we were mostly listening to a lot of hyperpop, a lot of experimental hip-hop.”
With lyrical motifs of depressive veracity and the discordant sense of human connection in the internet era, both Roy and Victor were keen to integrate those themes within the confines of their sound.
“When performing in a digital world, you are sometimes lacking the kinetic energy of a drummer, which we don’t have. In the beginning, we talked about how we could approach it sensorily, as well as how we can create a performance with computers in the same vein of Swans, but with a laptop.”
Victor’s intrigue with this concept shows up in both the lyrical and visual language of NPCEDE. “The lyrics are about how hardwired our need for distraction is, especially for younger audiences.
“Considering everything else going on in the world, there is an inherent frustration. At this point, that sense of discord seems pretty universal. Even the music video for the song Spleen is about growing up with porn and seeing the world through this twisted erotic environment,” he tells me.
“I think there is such a high sense of reflexivity that our generation experiences. It is kind of a double bind, where you are told to do certain things by older people but you are so self-aware in doing them. There is a tension and a frustration there,” says Victor.
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Their live shows are visceral, with Victor diving into the audience, head-to-head with fans, unrestrained. That literal sense of connection dissuades assumptions of performative nihilism that may be lobbied at NPCEDE.
This delicate interplay is something Roy takes to heart. “To be able to switch between irony and sincerity is important. We as a band are still very much resting in our raw feelings.
“I don’t personally like when bands use a distraction like irony as a way of curtailing what they are doing. It can be funny, sure, but it almost feels like a form of self-preservation. I think there is a degree of earnestness in our music. If I were to forecast, I would say that earnestness and sincerity would be our response to the past decade or so of irony.”
Their performances become, as a result, an interplay of these feelings.
“Even within the lyrics and that appeal to nihilism as a disaffected young person, there is a hidden sense of optimism, I feel. It almost feels anger but not quite,” laughs Roy. “We are definitely taking a leaf from the existentialists though. Whatever, God is dead, but now what?”
NPCEDE will be performing at Meadow Music Festival, taking place from March 21 to 23. Grab your tickets here.
