Name: HENGE
Members: Zpor (vocals, guitar), Goo (bass guitar, synth bass), Grok (synthesizers), Nom (drums)
Interviewee: Zpor
Nationality: British/Agricularean
Current release: HENGE's ALPHA TEST 4 is out via Cosmic Dross.
Recommendations: The books of Tom Robbins, the paintings of Matisse and the music of Paddy Steer.

If you enjoyed this HENGE interview and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit their official website. HENGE are also on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.  



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I listen to music with my eyes simultaneously both open and closed; Concentrating and not concentrating; Passive and active; Educated yet completely naive.

This is what we like to call ‘quantum listening’. This kind of listening means that each note, rhythm or timbre opens up all sonic possibilities before you. One is simultaneously listening passively whilst also creating one’s own music internally in a kind of private collaboration.

Like you, I see shapes and colours, but I also see nothing at all. It is in this space that the architecture of the universe is revealed. It can be very exhausting to listen to music in so many ways at once, so to make it bearable I simultaneously don’t do it.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

I originate from the planet Agricular in Cosmos Redshift 7. In Agriculan culture, music was not separated from the rest of daily life as it sometimes is on other worlds. From birth we were swaddled in sound. Younglings were weened on the 23 notes of the Agriculan mode and these musical notes were as food to our babies. Vitamins, proteins and rich mineral chord progressions provided the basis of both our sustenance and our education.

For my kind, playing with sound waves is an involuntary instinct much like breathing. Our traditional folk music is called ‘Cosmic Dross’. And although my planet was destroyed long ago … the music of Agricular lives on through my work on other planets.

Billions of years of experience have taught me that naive playfulness and universal wonder are central to meaningful musical creation.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

I would like to point out that scientific studies carried out on humans are not necessarily applicable to other lifeforms. And, as my childhood was billions of your Earth years ago, I do not have access to specific conscious memories that I can share with you.

However, I can tell you for certain that music has remained a central source of joy for me over the course of my exceptionally long life.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

The sacred alien art form ‘Cosmic Dross’ has seen numerous developments over giga-annums of time. Once such development occurred when I first met my travelling companion - Nom - on his home planet of Xylanthia in the Sirius Star System.

Nom is a wise, slippery creature of the genus Nommo. Partly on account of their voluptuous tentacles, the Nommo are particularly skilled at playing instruments of the membranophone family and I found that when traditional Cosmic Dross was combined with the amphibious rhythms of this Xylanthian creature, the sound evolved in a surprising and ecstatic direction.

This is not the only interplanetary cultural interface that has resulted in advances in the sonic architecture of Cosmic Dross. Long ago, upon discovering your neighbouring planet Venus, we found it to be inhabited by a race of advanced lifeforms which we called ‘Venusians’.

This species were somewhat barbaric in their treatment of each other and their planet. As such, their world was on the brink of a climate apocalypse. We had to leave in haste but we saved one specimen; a creature called Brother Goo. During a series of socialisation experiments we found that he responded particularly well to bass frequencies. Over time the Venusian became adept at harnessing violent bass frequencies for therapeutic effect and this inevitably worked its way into our music thereafter.

A further positive mutation of this living art form occurred on Earth when we landed here eight years ago. We had been contacted through the astral realm by a human being, known to us now as Grok. He told us of the plight of the human species, and guided us to a safe landing on your dangerous, militarised planet. He then joined us in our musical mission.

Using synthesisers to augment our soundworld, Grok has helped us to fine tune Cosmic Dross so to achieve maximum sonic efficacy on the human nervous system.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

Fun

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

Cosmic Dross can not be defined using human language.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

Though I have frequently wept to the sound of birdsong, the sound that has moved me most in the universe accompanies the terrifying spectacle of two black holes colliding. As no sound can escape the gravitational field of this cataclysmic event, nor can sound travel through the vacuum of space, it is deeply unsettling to witness something so incomprehensibly powerful that is soundtracked by silence.

Music is in the ear of the beholder. After spending millions of years listening to a myriad of sounds and rampantly debating the question ‘is this music?’, we have chosen to gleefully embrace the unanswerable nature of this question. Now the question we ask ourselves as listeners is ‘is this  interesting?’.

If you have music in your heart, you can hear it in unexpected places.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

Exploring extremes is the duty of any artist with an adventurous impulse. As I described earlier, HENGE’s Brother Goo is drawn to extreme, powerful bass frequencies, as this is therapeutic to his species.

However, we find that the most fun you can have with extremes is to bring them into a context that has shared meaning. In doing this you can expose even very ordinary listeners to wild ideas; welcoming them warmly into alien sonic worlds.

From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

We appreciate the rich diversity of music on this planet. Structure (a feature of what we’d call ‘arrangement’) presents a musician with yet another opportunity to express their own individual musical impulses.

We never take a ‘structure first’ approach in the creation of music as this would engage the wrong part of the brain … first we must play around and gleefully make noises until some ideas emerge. Only then would we think about which musical moment should follow another.

In the arrangement process we favour a variety of approaches. One of the most powerful features of music is the ability to set and subvert expectations through harmony, melody and rhythm. And we derive much joy and satisfaction from conspiring together thus:

Should we meet expectations this time? or insert a surprise instead? What would incite the most joy? or make us want to dance? These are the kinds of questions we love to ask.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

Yes. We have a piece of music called “Altered State” which is on our forthcoming album Alpha Test 4. This song came into being when I first met Nom on his home planet.

After consuming a liquid solution containing sacred Xylanthian plasma, we fell into a musical trance. We emerged from this ‘altered state’ after seventy-two ecstatic hours of uninterrupted musical creation.

The piece is just a small snapshot of what occurred inside that trance.

Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

Yes, in fact we have been conducting our own scientific experiments on the human species by holding gatherings in various locations across the planet.

At these gatherings human subjects are exposed to the extra-terrestrial music of HENGE. These experiments aim to explore the potential of alien frequencies to alter psychological and physiological states in human beings. We have found that one 75 minute exposure to Cosmic Dross leads to an average 60% increase in happiness levels.

A great many of the songs from our latest album Alpha Test 4 contain scientific subject matter. Wether extolling the virtues of ‘DNA’, celebrating our favourite extremophile in ‘Tardigrades’ or following the plight of the lonely ‘Asteroid’, we continue to be inspired by science, nature and the universe as we have been in our previous records.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

We delight in squeezing as much of the joy and wonder of life into our music as possible. In turn, this leads to a kind of music which itself brings further joy and wonder into life.

This creates a feedback loop of happiness which can help to clear the mind of any unhelpful emotional debris which can collect over time.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

It depends on how you make your coffee. We have observed that mundane tasks such as the making of coffee can occasionally be carried out with a performative panache, conversely all too often we have seen music being performed in a way that is as mundane as watching paint dry.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

I do actually. I vomit violently every time I hear a piece of music called “Heaven is a Place on Earth” by the human Belinda Carlisle. I have absolutely no idea why!



If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

Currently the human brain does not possess the bandwidth to process telepathic transmissions … but your evolution is ongoing.

One day humans, one day …