Alternative Soundtracks for Absurd Advertisements on Acid cover (2023).

Bye Bye Tsunami is a recent project based in Copenaghen and directed by Nathan L. (Lorenzo Colocci, at flaubosax, which is a self-constructed wind instrument, and electronics), U_Vi (Uldis Vitols, at bass) and SøreNator (Søren Høi, at drums). The esthetics of this trio, free-improvisational and fervidly chaotic, is signed by post-internet poetics, playing in a sacrilegious way with Japanese pop culture, but it appears as renewing in their more original characters: the production of scary and disturbing videos and the intense and vital playing describing sonic ultra-free-progressive patterns.

Lorenzo Colocci came from previous, similar musical adventures such as BRODO and You Are The Tube, which in a certain sense brought him to express his maximum potential with Bye Bye Tsunami.

We interviewed Lorenzo about Bye Bye Tsunami, their productions, and the next news. Following the interview.

Let’s begin from the beginning. How was born Bye Bye Tsunami and what are the intentions? It appears as a now wave project with free jazz and harsh noise elements. Could you tell us anything more?

“Bye Bye Tsunami’s music is the result of an electronic-oriented research on the flaubosax, an hybrid instrument created as an extension of the flute: in this project, I amplify the instrument by two contact mics on the plastic neck, going through an analog (bass/guitar pedals) and a digital (laptop) setting. Mix this with complex powerful drum rhythms leading the music through disrupted absurd forms, cyborg screams, and a fully banana-based diet, and you got it! Someone wrote our debut EP could create a new genre type called “FUTURE JAZZ”, which is cool, but I like to define our sound as Post-Mental/Meth-Metal; I thought it was funny how to use this extremely noisy and unpredictable tool into a rock, riff-based, music frame. But mostly, we wanted to fulfil our life dream of forming a dysfunctional boy band that would make us rich.”

Bye Bye Tsunami’s Jingle is a chaotic sonic conglomerate, that appears as an extract of an extended jam that anticipates your noisy mephistophelic potential. Anyway, a polyrhythmic attitude is more evident in this track than the following release. How did these particular aspects happen in the first phase of your career?

“That track is the processing of some recordings we made in the rehearsal space, unorthodoxly mixed with a track by visionary, inspiring artist Brent Walton; you can find more about him here: (the following videoclip)”

Your homonymous release (for Nefarious Industries) is a concentration of noisy and plastic sounds in a dynamic and diversified form. Can you describe its story and the relative creative process?

“The compositions are built on the Flaubosax, and most of the parts are the result of a practice-based approach on the instrument; this is a primitive instrument, therefore imposing big limitation: the challenge is to blend with, and follow the instrument to find what works best on it. Some of the most elaborate parts are the result of the editing of recordings of improvisations and whatever kind of ideas from the rehearsals, de-composed and re-built in a odd(er) way, then transcribed and adapted again to be played by the band.

“In this release also the aesthetic and video works are finely designed, merging together meticulously in a truly visionary dystopian universe, raising questions about the role of social media, advertisement, and gender in contemporary society.”

Pornceptual is characterized by an ever-changing time and a groovy melody based on distorted bass lines with magmatic craftsmanship. Similarly, the title track has the same rhythmic attitude with a spoken-hip-hop and freely improvisational divagations with Flaubosax, and, in the end, an unexpected easy-listening part with synth lines. How did happen these heterogeneous elements and this particular attitude linked with the catchy and noisy characters at the same time?

“It’s all about making sense of non-sense; if you do believe anything makes sense at all.”

The tracks Holdin’ Banana Spiders Through The Folds of Time-Space, Proteo and Red Bible have strong free-improvisational (the first) and weirdly-progressive (the second) elements, or a mix of them (the third), whereas the Flaubosax has an important role. Can you tell us how this instrument is born and what is your intention behind it? Moreover, can you describe its usage?

“I am primarily a flute player, and for a long time, I have been researching new ways to expand the timbral possibilities of my instrument in the realm of avant-garde and improvised music. Along this journey, I have conducted experiments with a “prepared” flute, incorporating plastic tubes of various sizes into standard Western flutes, alto flutes, and bass flutes, as well as employing different saxophone mouthpieces. This process has led me to create various prototypes of what I call the “flaubosax,” each with its own unique tuning and relationships between the notes. Consequently, the instrument produces a slightly “off” sound in relation to the tempered system, with the register and intervals exponentially increasing. The limitations of the instrument compel me to discover alternative solutions that may not have been previously considered.”

Bye Bye Tsunami. From left to right: U_Vi, Nathan L. and SøreNator.

J-Pop Love Banana Murder has a relevant electronic component, caustic and chaotic in a special way. It seems there is a pastiche with J-pop music samples, where everything is distorted with caustic creativity in an electro-noisy sense. Can you talk about this part of the album?

“I believe I created the electronic section utilizing a sample from a cover of “Yuugure no tori,” the closing theme of Season 2 of “Attack on Titans.” I sliced the sample and composed new rhythmic patterns with it. I particularly enjoyed the “plastic” and “lo-fi” qualities of the sound. Subsequently, we developed a drum part to strengthen and complement these patterns, occasionally juxtaposing them; The sample itself implies a harmonic progression in the song, which I further emphasized by incorporating an unconventional traditional latin flute solo, first played on the acoustic instrument, and later displaced by a sampler; the narrating voice coming in the middle of the song is by visionary av artist SABIWA, electronically processed by producer and collaborator Queimada (who also mixed the album); The lyrics to are based on the Italian version of the opening theme in the 1986 Japanese animated post-apocalyptic action film “Fist of the North Star”.”

The Alternative Soundtracks for Absurd Advertisements on Acid EP (featuring SABIWA on voice) is a mix of post-internet creativity (NIUKTNE, whereas it is characteristic its videoclip, scary, cheap, extremely strange) and a completely crazed prog-metal (Jesus is a Fake). It seems a violent attitude takes its place in the album, where everything tends to nude experimentalism of a free-form direction. Anyway, it doesn’t miss an unexpected silent part, giving a more hieratic feeling, and a shape more conceptual and weird at the same time in its totality. Can you talk about the creative process of this work, and how did happen the cited elements?

“The process that led us to the results of “Alternative Soundtracks for Absurd Advertisements on Acid” was peculiar. In the summer of 2021, we had the opportunity to record a live performance at Alice, a venue in Copenhagen where we had previously performed. They had some really nice equipment, and together with Thomas, the sound engineer, we prepared the entire room for the recording. At that time, we had only recently recorded “BYEBYE TSUNAMI,” so we didn’t really have enough new songs. Therefore, we decided to set up an electronic improvised live session, using the drums to trigger and process samples, incorporating nasty distortions and vocoders. Before the session, we joyfully had breakfast with the magical bananas ad and played it all day. After a few months, I revisited the material, which seemed to defy categorization: so I started experimenting by combining it with videos, mostly sourced from advertisements, YouTube, and Google Maps. This defined the overall concept of the album as an audiovisual release, to be published in the form of an advertisement.”

Bye Bye Tsunami can be seen as heredity from the poetry which came from your Crudo project (2016-2018), in collaboration with the vocalist Vincenzo Pedata, and a downtempo-noise-free-improvisational form. Indeed although many of the sonic patterns are ordered, corrosive creativity appears in the middle of those intuitions. Another proper reference with BBT could be the project You Are The Tube (collages with samples from the YouTube social website) and the collaboration in the album Another Mexican Porn/Punk Band (no-wave/Mexican musical pastiche), whereas the sonic weird punk-ness is associated with the post-internet element. So in your opinion, there is a real continuity with your other projects, and what are the effective influences?

Yeah, there is an obvious continuity in this projects: it all began with CRUDO and the enduring collaboration with Vincenzo. Perhaps he was the one who that corrupted me to a miserable life of noise for the years to come. Our collaboration and friendship nurtured my creativity, serving as a powerful source of inspiration. He disappeared one night into the forest, and never came back. No one has ever seen him since then.

At the end can you talk about the next news about your production and the cited projects?

Well, there’s a LOT going on! We are in the process of finalizing the mixing of our upcoming EP. For this one, we collaborated with various singers and other fantastic musicians to create a dystopian primitive sonic ritual: the result is absolutely inSaNeee, so stay tuned!