NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM's E´ons Quartet is a resurrection of the original lineup, the primal spirit of NNMM, entirely improvised and as gargantuan and cataclysmic as ever, as well as a ritual steeped in black magic.
"Nagabhuta?" immortalizes a splendid concert of the quartet, who met on the stage of Le Botanique in Brussels on April 9, 2025. The long (over 42 minutes), trance-inducing recording of the event is divided into 11 tracks and is titled "Devanam madhye nagabhuta? d???va te bibhyati," which means “Among the gods, at the sight of the one who has become a serpent, they are afraid.”
Jean Jacques Duerinckx unleashes his colossal saxophone while Guillaume Cazalet invokes chthonic forces with his heavy amplified guitar and ferocious vocals. Pierre Are`se, one of the original drummers, is no longer playing and is replaced by guest musician, the prolific and expressive percussionist Dirk Wachtelaer, who engages in a transcendental and martial percussion duel with Se´bastien Schmit.
With a title inspired by the cover painting of the same name by the great Daniele Valeriani, "Na¯gabhu¯tam?" —a term that combines the words na¯ga (serpent) and bhu¯tam? (to become)— is a magical ritual of spiritual transformation, a symbolic mutation in which the divine takes on evil connotations, perfectly described by NEPTUANIAN MAXIMALISM in their evocative shape-shifting drone doom with jazz and psychedelic flavors.
