Name: The Narcotix
Members: Esther Quansah, Becky Foinchas
Interviewee: Becky Foinchas
Nationality: American-Ivorian (Esther Quansah) American-Cameroonian (Becky Foinchas)
Current release: The Narcotix's debut album Dying is out now.
Recommendations: The Perfect Matrimony - Samuel aun weor; Self Remembering - Red Hawk

If you enjoyed this The Narcotix interview and would like to keep up to date with the band and their music, visit their official homepage. They are also on Instagram, Soundcloud, twitter, and Facebook.



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?

Depends on the circumstance. Generally both.

I tend to feel sensations of a tree growing from its soil, when I listen to music that resonates.  

Entering new worlds and escapism through music have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to listening to and creating music?

Vulnerability. Fearless vulnerability.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience?

Usually a session of making animal noises, crawling on the floor, restless convulsions, lots of yelling and mooing.

I think that at this very moment I am as wise as I have ever been, so the measurement is boundless. I guess it can be measured in the rate of my breathing.

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?

Who is science? lol.

It was full of rock in the car, West African music at home, and 16th century European hymns at school. Hence …

How would you describe your own relationship with your instrument, tools or equipment?

I don’t understand them. They are animals in the wild. Erratic and defiant.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

Lately, I’ve been afraid to create. Battling this egotistical propensity to be successful in my sound, so much so that I’m muted by the idea.

Normally the impulse comes from a mutant place. Reasonless.

Are you acting out parts of your personality in your music which you couldn't or wouldn't in your daily life? If so, which are these? What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music?

Yes and no. I tend to scream in life. I also scream in the music.

I’m looking forward to murdering this whole personality concept and inviting something more eternal.

If music is a language, what can we communicate with it? How do you deal with misunderstandings?

Love and love.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and about discovery. How do you retain a sense of playfulness and how do you still draw surprises from tools, approaches and musical forms you may be very familiar with?  

Because Esther and I met when we were 8 years old, it is a natural predisposition to be children.

I can be vulnerable. My innermost child leaks without effort.

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”?

One time, during a mortifying bout with sleep paralysis, a nordic witch lady recited tongues in my ear. It was a loud whisper and I could feel the wind of her breath  on my ear.

I would describe it as less of a moving experience, more of a paralysing one. Though in retrospect, I recognize it  as a gift.

There seems to be an increasing trend to capture music in algorithms, and data. But already at the time of Plato, arithmetic, geometry, and music were considered closely connected. How do you see that connection yourself? What aspects of music do you feel can be captured through numbers, and which can not?

I haven’t a clue. I’m still learning to count to 10.

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?

I think the answer to this question is the same answer to the question of why babies know how to dance without taking dance lessons?

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

Silence is God.

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?

No. It depends what type of attention you’re giving the mundane tasks, as I believe that music is an act of making love.

The study of gnosis, spiritual alchemy has taught me that to be here now, is to remember god, and to remember the self. To breathe, and recognize your  breath is to both live and die momentously.

So then, if you're making a cup of coffee with great awareness, not thinking about the past or the future, then it is as profound as the sex that is Bethooven’s 7th in my opinion.    

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

For sheer vulnerability to lead.