N0V3L

Growing out of a collective household of artists in Vancouver, N0V3L looked to the figureheads of post-punk when coming up with their groove-heavy but dissonant style. Operating more as a collective than a traditional band, various members joined their powers to release two singles in late 2018, and delivered a combination of angular guitar leads, nervous rhythms, and societal critiques on their 2021 full-length debut Non Fiction.
Founded around some of the same musicians who made up Crack Cloud, N0V3L’s membership could include up to six different players at any given time. The group based their operations out of a communal house in Vancouver, where they worked on music, visual art, and many other creative pursuits. The sound for this incarnation of their work borrowed from the warped dance rhythms and tightly wound guitar lines of post-punk acts like Gang of Four or A Certain Ratio, as well as the wave of acts that followed the same template in the early 2000s. The band first issued a series of singles in 2018, and those four tracks, along with four additional songs, found their way onto a lengthy EP entitled NOVEL that was released on the Flemish Eye label in early 2019. The band made several videos for their jumpy, anxiety-ridden songs and toured internationally in support of the release. Two years later, the band returned with their first full length album, Non Fiction. The record included material that had been written as far back as 2017, and was recorded on an analog tape machine in the band’s shared living space/creative space before the building was torn down and they had to relocate. ~ Fred Thomas