Band of the Week: Noot d'Noot

When musicians come together to form a band I imagine one of the challenges would be retaining the individual styles and tastes of each musician. It is all to easy to get lost in the sound of others, but it is the strongest bands that fully display all the colors of its members. Atlanta's Noot d'Noot may hide behind invented names, but they allow the nature of each band members shine through on their new release ep, Cash For Gold. Dream Sanitation (melody), Bimbi Garraux (rhythm), Skins Malone (patterns), Dr. Kinje-winds, Jah Scorpion (egyptian musk), "Crab" Louie Warbour (knob twiddlin-rhythm ace pro), E-Fec-Tiv A: "Electro Siren" (vox), E-Fec-Tiv B: "Circuit Diva" (vox), MC Eboli/DJ Dookie Platters (master of ceremonies), B. Cruzan Dondaro (liquor rep), and come together to present a sound that mixes r & b, hip hop, soul, drum n' bass, pop and more. It's a sound for summer, and one that is hard to resist.

Bimbi Garraux of Noot d'Noot was kind enough to answer a few of my questions.

Orange Alert (OA): Your new EP, Cash for Gold, will be released on June 16th. What can you tell us about Cash for Gold? How long has it been in the works?
Bimbi Garraux (BG): Well, last year we heard a lot of whispers of this or that, did some production work outside of the group, played a ton of gigs, and started writing new material collectively as the 10 piece band that exists today. It took the first album, "Goofer Dust", a long time to come out, so we were quite ready to do something new.

So I think in January, we decided instead of listening to the whisperers, we'd just get cracking and put something out ourselves. In this era, music can be very immediate. You can record something and release it digitally that night. We didn't wanna wait 2 years for a cloud of smoke to disappear and us be holding some tunes we did years ago.

Originally, this record was planned as a 12" single for "Fingers Like Steeples", but rather than just a ten minute, 2 or 3 song single, we went ahead and packed it out. I guess its technically an EP. You could think of it as a soft opening for the full length album we are currently working on.

OA: While listening to the ep what jumped out at me was the mixture of styles. There was a time when Drum n' Bass, trip hop, reggae, and so on where separate forms and rarely met, but your sound seems to be a true mixture of many different sound and influences. Does each member of the band bring a different style or is it collective style that you are perfecting?
BG: That was definitely the idea from the get go, to not worry about style or sound, or say we can't do something because it sounds too different from our other stuff. That's kind of the point of the name, "Noot d' Noot". As a listener, you have no frame of reference for it, so your expectations of what it will sound like are loosened.

One of the joys of the group is all the different musical backgrounds. If you look thru Skins Malone's collection of rock records, he's got two. "Revolver" and "Saturday Night Fever". This cat is probably shaving the hair off an African cow skin he just stretched across some drum he carved out of a tree as I write this. Circuit Diva just went to the T.I. farewell concert, Dr. Kinje is probably teaching some youngster to blow their horn, and Dream Sanitation is probably rolling burritos listening to Aphex Twin. So yeah, put that in a pot and mix, and don't ask...."hmm is that too.....?" Its just right.

OA: Where did the nicknames come from?
BG: That kinda goes back to what I was saying about the name, Noot d' Noot. If you become someone else, outside of yourself, it frees you up to let the music take you further. So any route into the light of the music, we follow.

OA: You recently worked on a project that for Orange Alert that challenged you to create a sonic drop for a poet while he read letters that he had written. What was that experience like and how did you assess what the right sound for that project was?
BG: Chris and Hosho sent us a script with general ideas, which was quite helpful. As for our input, it was the kind of thing that we didn't want over think. Being that we are essentially complimenting a conversation between the two writers, we wanted to lay in the cut and just come across as life going on elsewhere. Maybe hint at things going on inside and outside the conversation. There are segments of Dream Sanitation (keys) and Dr. Kinje (sax) warming up at a rehearsal behind one of Chris' letters that ended up being one of my favorite segments because it sounds their instruments are conversing with each other and with Chris.

Chris brought his typewriter and we recorded him banging out something on it. At the end, he pulled it off the typewriter, sorta stopped to glance at it, and then balled it up and threw it across the room. It ended up sounding really cool and I thought it was very honest as far as making art goes. How many times do musicians, artists, and poets sit down to work on something, only to decide later, "this is shit" and then just can it? The important thing is the PROCESS of creating. So maybe we took a little liberty by tagging that on the end where Hosho says "I write because it is essential." I think it makes a statement that it essential to him, but it is merely for the sake of doing it and not for any other reason.

OA: Atlanta seems to be home to a wide range of sounds, how would you sum up the scene in Atlanta?
BG: That's one of those questions that's hard to put a finger on.....because I think everyone is just doing what they do. I am definitely thankful for the variety though.

OA: What's next for Noot d'Noot?
BG: We'll be playing a lot this summer down south. Maybe some more extensive touring, we'll see. I imagine we'll probably get right back to recording, as we have a ton of material not yet documented. I wouldn't say the next record is a concept record by any stretch, but there is a theme, a common thread if you will, running thru it. At least in these developmental stages. I'm about ready to get on it.

Bonus Questions:
OA: If you could sit down to coffee with anyone (alive or dead) who would it be?
BG: Well, rather than give a great artist/musician or master teacher answer, I'll say this. If our species has been here for 250,00 years, and we've had agrarian civilizations for only 5,000, I wonder what it was like for those folks for the first 99.5% of our history? The concept of the Endless Return fascinates me, as these folks probably saw change come so slowly during their lifetime, they most likely experienced time as a circle rather than a line. Its often overwhelming how much things change in our world, on a much smaller scale than a lifetime.

So I'll go with some ancient ancestor, just to see how far we have come. I bet she could find something stronger than coffee for us to drink.

OA: What was the last great you have read?
BG: Been kinda slacking on the reading lately, but I been touching up on "The Doors Of Perception/Heaven And Hell" Aldous Huxley combo book. Two classic psychedelic essays that really put the experience into words where words are hard to find.

For more information on Noot d'Noot please visit their website and don't forget to pick up a copy of Cash for Gold which is now available. The band is playing their record release show this tomorrow at The Earl in Atlanta.