Noah Rosa ~ Sirius

SIRIUS is not a soundtrack that tries to justify its existence beyond the material it was originally created for. What Noah Rosa does is to open it up as a conversation with different artists. A cold wintry tone introduces the album. A glacial wind sweeps through. The score unfolds through slow transformations with harmony moving almost imperceptibly, but it is the dialogue between Habib El Bardi’s alto saxophone and Ruiqi Wang’s voice that gives the album its emotional centre. El Bardi’s saxophone drifts in and out of the texture with carefully judged restraint, while Wang’s voice functions as another timbral presence, dissolving into the surrounding electronics. Together they create music that feels suspended. That sense of openness is no accident. In the following interview, Noah Rosa explains that he gave both performers little more than a framework within which to improvise, allowing their own personalities to shape the music. One can hear that freedom throughout the score. Rather than sounding meticulously controlled, these pieces retain a quiet unpredictability, as though they are continually discovering themselves as they unfold. The second half of the album takes the project in a different, yet entirely coherent, direction. Rosa invited four artists to create what he calls “Refractions.” The title is more than a metaphor. These are not remixes but new perspectives on the same material, each revealing something that remained latent in the original. Vaiu’s contribution is perhaps the clearest example of this philosophy. Knowing her practice, centred on “the music underneath an instant” and on voice, time and technology as collaborators, makes perfect sense of her approach. She works from within the composition, drawing attention to tiny gestures, and the act of breathing itself. The refraction by Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das is the album’s most transformative moment. His introduction of a quiet harmonium pulse reorganises the music from within, while fragments of the original score drift in and out of focus. Nothing feels imposed. Instead, the composition reveals another possible version of itself and, in the process, goes somewhere entirely different. Ioannis Nafpliotis pushes the material further towards electroacoustic abstraction, reducing much of the score to resonance, drone and silence, before Noah Rosa himself closes the cycle with his own “Refraction.” Rather than bringing everything full circle, Rosa acknowledges the creative dialogue established by the preceding reinterpretations. His own “Refraction” expands the sonic palette, making it more luminous and harmonically warmer. The collaborative spirit of the project extends beyond the “Refractions.” Habib El Bardi, Ruiqi Wang and the three artists behind the “Refractions” are not simply invited to decorate pre-existing compositions; they become co-authors of the record. That openness seems central to Rosa’s wider practice. Across The Radiant Tower, Drawing a Circle, The Two Headed Dragon of Forgiveness and now SIRIUS, he repeatedly returns to ideas of grief, transformation and renewal. As he explains, music is both his way of processing personal experience and of engaging with the world beyond himself. By the end, SIRIUS has become a conversation. To discuss further the production process for the album we spoke directly with Noah Rosa. Sirius began as a film score, but the album expands beyond the boundaries of the film through the four “Refraction” pieces. When you revisited the material after the film’s completion, what were you hoping to discover in the source recordings, and how did the soundtrack transform once it was allowed to exist as a standalone work rather than serving the image? Working on the score with the director Jean-Bastien was such a great experience and I really admired and connected with his vision for the film. Also getting to work with talented friends is such a gift so bringing on Habib and Ruiqi made the whole process feel special. After the film did its festival run I had gotten some good feedback on the music, it received a socan award, and I enjoyed listening to it, so we talked about putting out the soundtrack. I’d never done this before as I think of my composing work as pretty separate from my solo releases and also generally think that film music works best in the context it was created for. So with this in mind, I was more interested in re-approaching the music as a new entity and bringing new life to it. There was some music we made when initially building the sound language for the film that wasn’t used in the edit that I was excited to share. The film is really beautifully minimal and we wanted to pare back the music as much as possible to leave the stillness and quiet that it needed to hit right. So I did a new mix of all the cues to make them a bit more present for this release and during this process I thought it would be interesting to see how some other artists might respond to the material as I felt the raw elements from Habib and Ruiqi held a sort of integrity, and were imbued with the emotion of the film. I’m really grateful to evo-natura for supporting this project and Ioannis for contributing a track. I’ve always felt he understood what I was trying to do with both SIRIUS and my previous release Two Headed Dragon and I’m really happy to have it be the home for these works. Across releases such as The Radiant Tower, Drawing a Circle, The Two Headed Dragon of Forgiveness, and now Sirius, there seems to be a recurring interest in grief, transformation, spirituality, and the possibility of renewal. The Radiant Tower was conceived as a mourning album and “a eulogy to the old world,” while Drawing a Circle explored cycles of collapse and endurance, and The Two Headed Dragon of Forgiveness emerged from notions of suffering, forgiveness, and rebirth. Looking back across these works, do you see them as chapters of a larger artistic inquiry, or has each release represented a distinct attempt to process a particular moment in your life? Music is really my best language for processing what’s around me and further, my way to engage with the world. So both are true, all the works are personal and integrate processes I’m going through in my personal life but they also all hopefully work towards a greater truth beyond me. I’m very interested in transformation, change is often what we both want and fear the most… but it’s happening regardless. The album is shaped by collaboration at several levels: from Habib El Bardi’s alto saxophone and Ruiqi Wang’s voice in the original score to the contributions of artists such as Vaiu, Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das, and Ioannis Nafpliotis in the “Refractions.” What were you looking for in these collaborators, and were there aspects of the material that surprised you when filtered through other artists’ sensibilities—particularly in the richly transformative “Refraction II” by Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das? This is definitely one of the most collaborative projects I’ve released. Ruiqi and Habib are both incredible improvisers and I really only gave them scaffolding to work within. So much of their voice and personality comes through the music and I really think of it as a shared work. For the refractions I was interested in seeing how the raw elements could be completely recontextualized into these artists’ own sound worlds. I gave very little feedback or direction for them, mostly because these artists are all just incredible, but also because I wanted to be surprised by where they took it. Bios Contrast & Nilotpal Das is an artist I’ve admired for years. The way he’s able to move between long form minimalist drone and blown out idm with it making complete sense, the visual language, and sense of humour, all make him a really exciting artist. So I had no idea what to expect from the rework and loved how it brought this constant pulse from the harmonium while different layers from the score drift in and out. Similarly, when I first heard Vaiu’s track I was blown away by how she played in the musical landscape of the score but created something completely original, weaving her voice and sensibilities into the world. One striking aspect of your work is the way environmental sound, mythology, spirituality, and political reality coexist without ever feeling forced together. Both Drawing a Circle and Sirius direct their proceeds toward Palestinian causes, while albums such as The Two Headed Dragon of Forgiveness engage deeply with place, memory, and cultural exchange. What motivates your decision to connect these releases to concrete forms of solidarity, and do you see artistic practice as having a particular ethical responsibility in moments of ongoing crisis? I guess these are just reflections of what I care about, what I’m thinking about. I’m not making enough from music to live off anyways so I have a job to support myself. Proceeds from my releases could be supplementary to me or perhaps something a little more meaningful to someone else. It can feel a bit strange attaching monetary worth to art for me, so offering it as a gift in exchange for wealth redistribution feels more in balance. I believe all art making is political, and I hope my work carries some message of compassion and solidarity. It can also be quite a selfish and individualist thing to spend all your time trying to express your interior world so I think anything we can do to offset that by reconnecting with the world is important. Apart from artistic practice, I think we as humans all have a responsibility to reduce as much suffering as we can in our short times on this earth, or at the very least try not to add more. That is what ripples into eternity. Several of your releases—including Drawing a Circle and Sirius—have donated proceeds to Palestinian initiatives such as Grassroots Al-Quds and The Sameer Project. At a time when many artists feel pressure either to remain silent or to make overt political statements, how do you think about the relationship between sound, empathy, and action? Can ambient and experimental music contribute meaningfully to solidarity, even when it contains no explicit political message? If we are scared to even speak out about the greatest injustices happening in the world, the empires have already won. No career, status marker, or opportunity is worth turning a blind eye. I think the most important thing is patient everyday resistance and it requires constant attention. That being said I think we look to artists a little too much for their politics and social stance. Someone whose job it is to dream and play make believe might not always have the most grounded worldview. I really appreciate you asking these questions, even though I might not yet have the words to fully express what they mean to me. On a good day, I believe in music’s power to connect us with the ineffable and remind us that we are all manifestations of the same unity. Other days I think we might need less poetry and more direct action.. For now I’m just trying to be a decent person and stay connected to what matters. (Gianmarco Del Re)