CHINO AMOBI

Matteo Pini Your previous albums have been sprawling and operatic; Eroica 2: Christian Nihilism is no less ambitious, but it is more song-oriented. Was this an intentional choice?
Chino Amobi Yes. I wanted the songs to feel as expansive as the Houston sky, yet simpler in structure and more harmonious in proportion. A return to intelligible form.

MP The album is subtitled “Christian Nihilism”. How does Christianity compare to other religions in terms of nihilism? Do you see a distinction between nihilism and hopelessness? 
CA Nihilism is the belief that life has no meaning. Hopelessness is more about the feeling of despair that results from nihilism. The difference with Christ is that he personally experienced that nihilistic hopelessness and fully embodied the pain and despair that came with it. This is why, on the cross, he exclaimed, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Žižek discusses this in more atheistic terms, but I approach that moment through the lens of nihilism. Yet the pain and despair are temporary in light of the resurrection and reconciliation with God, for those who believe and find hope in Christ. Christianity acknowledges and resolves the crisis and the profound opportunity presented in the acute vacuum of contemporary cultural nihilism.

MP Your music has often responded to the world's chaos. As the world has become more chaotic, how has your music changed? 
CA That is the irony of the new album. As the world has become more chaotic, I have become more at peace with the inner eternal life. But this is not any wanton denial of external conditions. The turmoil has deepened my love for God and my compassion for the world. That is why the album sounds more sensual and embodied than my previous work, even if at times dispassionately so.

MP The album draws upon Houston’s heritage. Which elements of the city –  architectural, musical, or historical – were you evoking?
CA The sprawling grid. The feeling of driving on its smooth, psychedelic, endless highways. The sensation of high-slow speed. The luxury of space. Its ruins and dizzying expansion. Its beauty and its cruelty. Its brutal warmth and sweltering humidity. Its history of rap, minimalist art, and playful postmodern architecture. Its car culture. The psychic atmosphere created by the Gulf. Its diversity and its gaping economic disparity. Houston is an understated and elusive megalopolis that cannot truly be described; it can only be slowly sunk into.

MP You have often collaborated with visual artists and designers. How do visual concepts influence the way you approach music composition, particularly on this album?
CA I see the world through the lens of cinematography. For me, it is all a living film. This is why the album feels like a soundtrack. It is the score of my life. It is the embers rising from a fully lived experience, not arbitrary concepts. When I collaborate with like-minded people, this attitude is reinforced naturally.

MP The album seems to engage with both personal and collective histories. How do you balance the autobiographical with the cultural or societal in your work?
CA That is simply the way I process information and recognize patterns. It is in my DNA. I am not going out of my way to balance anything. It is just me being more aligned with God, nature, and my own nature. It is as natural as speaking for me. But it is also why the album is inspired by Russian writers like Dostoevsky and filmmakers like Tarkovsky. They handled this balance so deftly.

MP You were featured in Simon Reynolds’ 2019 article “The Rise of Conceptronica.” How did you feel about being bracketed within that essay? Does the term “conceptronica” have any meaning to you over five years later? Looking back on your own oeuvre, do you perceive patterns or “through-lines” that you were not aware of while creating it?
CA I think what is more interesting than how I did or did not feel about that is this through line. Here is an excerpt from an interview Conrad Flynn recently did with Tucker Carlson, in which Simon Reynolds is mentioned concerning the occult and AI:

“One of the ways I actually really got into this stuff is a friend of mine, Simon Reynolds, brilliant cultural critic, brilliant rock critic, originally from the UK. I brought him on the music show, and he interviewed Nick Land. Simon is the most stiff upper lip, very intellectual English guy you could know. The fact that he was interviewing Nick Land, who people said was crazy, into the occult, into all these wild things, made me think that if Simon interviewed him, this would be a down to earth understanding of who Nick Land is because Simon is very down to earth.

When I read Simon’s interview with him, which is from 1998 and also where Simon meets the philosopher Mark Fisher, which I got to relish, I thought this is probably the first and last time someone will bring up Mark Fisher on your podcast, Tuck. I wanted to savor that moment. Simon interviews Nick Land, and in his very lengthy article he talks about how Nick Land is supposedly possessed by three or four entities at the same time. That is the legend, and we do not know. Take what you will from any of this. But these are spiritual entities. Demons. Nick Land was really into demons. He brings up the 93rd Current, which is the name of a band, Current 93, tied to Aleister Crowley’s Thelema. They are drawing pentagrams. They are renting Aleister Crowley’s house.

That was a huge moment for me when I realized that this guy who is very big in tech and very big on the future of AI, and my friend is interviewing him, is deeply into these heavy industrial goth things that I know from this research here. What is he doing in AI?”

Eroica 2: Christian Nihilism is out now on Drowned By Locals.