For those of you encountering None for the first time today, it began in 2015 as the solo musical project of Nicholas Mendiola from San José, California, now based in Los Angeles. The music is unconventional, and thus not easily pigeon-holed in genre terms. We can suggest that over time it has involved an alchemical interaction of black metal, neo-folk, industrial, and dark ambient ingredients, but for Nicholas “The Dark Gospel” is what he calls the music of None.
That term not only abjures explicit genre references, it also connects with None‘s conception of musical creation as a spiritual endeavor, as a never-ending search for the divine and an expression of its mystical presence both within ourselves as an animating force and external to us.
Last October None played their first hometown show in San José at The Caravan Lounge. There, Nicholas was joined in the representation of None by bassist and guitarist Nathan Nunes. They performed six songs, five of which were new and never-before heard. The show was recorded, and tomorrow (March 8th) it will be released as an album entitled Alive in San Jose. The show was also filmed, and today we’re premiering the video of None‘s live show, as well as the full album stream of the set.
As you’ll discover for yourselves in watching the video and/or listening to the album, the results of the afore-mentioned alchemical reactions change within songs and from song to song. What doesn’t change, and is most evident in the video, is the intensity of the performers’ immersion in what they’re doing, which begins immediately after a mysterious and meditative piano overture, joined by Nicholas‘ half-snarled, half-gasped words, an overture that itself portends some of the darkness to come.
In that opening piece, “Stories,” the haunting spell cast by the opening minutes is shredded by tumultuous low-frequency upheavals, slashing chords, shimmering and rippling overtones, blasting drums, and increasingly rabid and ravenous vocals.
To segment the experience, the acoustic guitar steps forward vibrantly, and the headbanging begins, but it also creates an exotic and enticing yet sinister melody. As the piano surfaces again, backed by dark, momentous chords, the raw torment in the vocals reaches frightening heights.
From just that opening number it becomes obvious that None follows its own distinctive muse, and that the pathways of the songs split into differing directions that also then intersect and unite again. It’s also evident that the music is dynamic, with variations in both intensity and instrumentation.
All those impressions are reinforced by the songs that follow “Stories”, including the high-speed, high-intensity race of “Desert Skyline,” in which acoustic-guitar melodies that seem to have an Arabian and Spanish flair unfurl around hammering drums, thrusting bass-lines, and jagged, scalding vocals, but then begin to resemble the sonic equivalent of an oasis shimmering in the heat.
The arrangement of the songs in the set reinforces the impression of changing paths, and thus the nearly 10-minute “Absolute Devotion” follows the pulse-pounding surge of “Desert Skyline” with a slower and darker experience, though it too pounds the pulse, and the vocals are no less terrorizing in their fanatical intensity. And once again, if you think acoustic guitar and blasting drums don’t belong together, you’ll have to revise that opinion, because it works again.
“Absolute Devotion” includes its own exotic and mysteriously enticing instrumental breaks soft, menacing snarls, apparitional gasps, and shifts in drum-and-bass patterns that appreciably add to the music’s elaborate metamorphoses.
We’ll resist the temptation to continue commenting track by track. Suffice to say, the back half of the set provides an experience that’s just as wide-ranging and just as unpredictable as the first three songs, an ever-changing course that’s by turns haunting, nightmarish, esoteric, enticing, and incendiary.
Along with the changing moods and sensations, the songs seem to combine folk and classical guitar influences, along with the raw and unhinged intensity of the vocals, and rhythmic accompaniment that also reveals a range of influences, including further bursts of black-metal blasting.
As icing on the cake, the video adds a stirring feeling of immediacy to the listening experience. Watching the performers up close and personal as they achieve all the intricate twists and turns, throwing themselves whole-heartedly into the performances but wonderfully locked together and seamlessly integrated with the pre-recorded ingredients of the music. (It’s obvious that a tremendous amount of preparation went into this show, and it paid off handsomely.)
At the end, Nicholas leaves his instrumentation to previously recorded tracks, including a dancing flute-like melody, so that he can completely devote himself to vocally turning himself inside-out — though Nunes is left with the last notes.
And with that, we’ll leave you to the video. You’ll find the premiere of the Bandcamp album stream further below.
Alive in San Jose was taped/edited, recorded, and mixed by Portal Studios. The band photos were made by Wyman Choy Photography. Nicholas Mendiola made the band logo, and the album’s cover was edited by John Bradford Schuler.
Drums were pre-recorded by John Schuler and Adam Ordonez, and additional backing instruments and vocals by Nicholas Mendiola.
The album is available for order now. None recommends it for fans of Blut Aus Nord, Vatican Shadow, and Rome.
PRE-ORDER:
https://none.bandcamp.com/album/alive-in-san-jose
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