Start Listening To: Black Fondu

A conversation with an artist reshaping chaos, melody and identity into something defiantly his own.

Emerging out of London’s ever-shifting underground, Black Fondu and his music seem to exist at a constant intersection of noise and melody. Near genreless in its free-float between scenes and sounds, the worlds captured on his debut EP BLACKFONDUSIM are  beautiful in their chaos. Beginning with a near hypnagogic slice of pop pastiche on ‘HOLLA BACK GIRL’, BLACKFONDUSIM is a slow descent into noise and emotion, finding new forms of beauty deep in the depths of distortion.

It’s a contrast to the raw emotive energy of Fondu’s live shows. Loud, brash, and brilliantly physical, he is a sight to behold on stage, evoking that rare sensation. The feeling that you're watching the next great star emerge from a cold, blinding night. While BLACKFONDUSIM may not carry that same immediacy, it's all the more brilliant for it. The EP stands among the year's best for how it revels in deconstruction beyond deconstruction's sake. Finding new worlds and horizons amongst the crackles and cries.

Sitting down with Black Fondu, it's apparent that the passion that exudes from his music exudes from him as well. The radical sincerity and raw vision that he possesses seem to crackle out of each answer. More than anything else, there's excitement. While Black Fondu might be early in his career, he's not letting that blind his ambition, but neither is he letting his massive leaps as an artist get to his head. Instead, it's crystal clear that to him vision and passion are what reign supreme.

For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you're from, and about the music you make?

Black Fondu: I’m Black Fondu, I'm based in South London, and I guess with my music I'd call it, like, post-music. My music is what's after music, if that makes sense. We're in that generation where we have every reference point, every type of music available. So, I think everything made within this generation is kind of post-everything, y’know

Is there any particular music you'd say Black Fondu is coming immediately after?

Black Fondu: I can't really answer that.

That's fair. So, you've got your debut EP coming out, how are you feeling about that?

Black Fondu: I'm feeling good. I'm feeling very excited for what's next. I like to say like Thanos (laughs), I'm collecting these stones for my own self. Releasing music has been difficult, and I'm finally getting a consistent idea of what I want to be doing and how I want to be doing it. This EP marks that transition. You know, in the sound and the direction.

Because you've been performing these songs for a while, have they, changed as you’ve performed them, from workshopping them live?

Black Fondu: I actually haven't been playing. a lot of the EP stuff. I played, maybe… three songs, actually, yeah, three of the 7 or 6, I forget. 3 of those songs I’ve been consistently performing.

It's been kind of the other way around, I think. All the stuff that I've got coming like, my first album, all those songs I would perform all the time. And in the recording process that changed. drastically because of how I performed it. But this EP, sits in a digital world, you know, It's a different feel. So performing it live. I find the recording even better compared to my other recordings. The recordings are so and insane, but the live show is hard to compete with.

I managed to see us at End of the Road, which was really, really phenomenal. You bring loads of physicality and movement into your performance. Is that, like, something that you think about beforehand, or does it just come naturally when you’re performing?

Black Fondu: It’s in the moment, traversing, expectations. I dislike how a lot of musicians will react to an audience, and then they'll change. But I like it to be you are the thing, and they're reacting to you, instead of you accommodating or thinking too hard about what you're doing.

It should just be the music, the music, the music. I find with my shows, I'm just reacting to my songs and people are there to just watch me and listen to the music, and hopefully dance.

Rather than you having to meet them, they've got to meet you in a way.

Black Fondu: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

I really noticed on the EP, that you have this balance between noise and pop, is that something that's difficult for you to navigate, or is it just quite intuitive?

Black Fondu: So, actually I used to really struggle with this. Even the idea of making a song I found so hard, because my brain isn't wired like that.  I just like chaos, and I like just everything to be kind of fucked. If I had it my way, you know, like I used to it was just straight noise and kind of intense. Maybe not so melodic, but I've kind of found my melody again. It was through making ‘Holla Back Girl’. I saw that transition in my sound. Where I could actually do that. It's kind of to do with ego. Not thinking you can do something because of your own idea of who you are. That's what I got rid of after I made ‘Holla Back Girl’, I kind of just realized I can be anything I want to be. I can make any music that I want to make so, yeah, it just comes naturally. Because I've let go of me, essentially. 

Speaking about noise is that something you consider doing  further down the line, making full-on noise music?

Black Fondu: So do you know Merzbow?

Yeah I love Merzbow.

Black Fondu:  So, when I was, like. 18, I was going through some heavy stuff and my friend Gabe who's in that band called Paper Hats. They showed me Merzbow, and I lost my absolute mind because it cured me of the noise within my head. So, I have this balance in my sound where the noise scratches an itch, but then there’s a whole other world I'm building as well, so the combination comes together quite well. So I don't think I'll be making only noise music.

I noticed in the press release you referred to the EP as an introduction to your worlds rather than world singular. Do you feel like each of the songs exists in their own world?

Black Fondu: I think each of those songs, as much as they're part of that idea, which is Black Fonduism, it’s just an idea. They are of their own world. How would I describe it? Maybe a song for every kind of person. You know what I mean? Like, there's not a particular sound running through it, like a singular voice, as in a singular emotion. Because they're all different emotions. I think there is gonna be, like. a feeling for every person to fall into.

How do you feel that London as a cityscape or the scene in London has shaped you as an artist and the music?

Black Fondu: I'm a third year now, but first year, when I first moved to South London I had a view in my accommodation of the shard, like, Canary Wharf, and all of that. And it influenced my music, believe it or not. Humans are sponges, we absorb everything and being in this kind of concrete jungle, this brutalist environment my music lined up pretty well with it. My natural influences from the environment affected my sound so much.  Very metallic tastes, y’know, I just view London as glass and steel and light. I've definitely brought that to my music.

You’ve been gigging a lot in London. Are there any venues in particular that mean a lot to you?

Black Fondu: Yes, actually, the windmill, obviously, because. Tim gave me a shot and here I am now, y’know what I'm saying. But I'd say one of my favourite venues is actually my friend's studio called Excelsior Works. I played his release show for the band Jawharp who've had a great impact on me, like, sound-wise. I've been very attracted to hardcore bands. It’s the noise that I've always been attracted to. And yeah it's their art studio, but they bring out a massive sound system, and we just get lit there.

Talking about local bands like Jawharp are there any other local bands or people you know of in the scene who’ve influenced your approach as a musician?

Black Fondu: I wouldn't say there has been a direct influence on my sound, apart from just bands in general being so fucking loud. That's the main influence on my sound from the scene. Just the loudness of these fucking bands, where I'm likenI'm making electronic and it's so digital. How do I get that loud? So, obviously, I went back to the basement after hearing a few bands and I made mine loud. Just so I can compete in the live circuit, because otherwise, imagine, a band comes before me, and I go on, and it's just a hundred times quieter. So I have to match that.

Do you feel like your goal at the moment live wise, is to get perpetually louder? To become the loudest acts in London?

Black Fondu: Yeah (laughs). The loudest act. I don't know if the sound systems can take that because I've already broken a few speakers in my time. I don't think that's the approach, because I think every sound engineer will probably put a cap on the loudness. I had an incident actually, where this sound guy, I won't say what venue, because I’m already blacklisted the venue anyway. But the sound guy had cranked the sound so loud that when I clicked play, it was just straight distortion. In the sound check, it was fine, and then for the live I clicked play, and I'm like, Fuck! And he told me to get on with the show and then I kicked down the monitor in rage, but that’s the most I've lost my shit on stage. So maybe not too loud. Just got into this, like, full fucking Merzbow.

What do you prefer, working in the studio and developing tracks in the studio, or performing live?

Oh, okay. Well, let me think, because, like, eve the recording, there's so many phases I go through before a song is done. Like, even I say I prefer the voice memo. I prefer the original freestyle, where it just came out of me, and whenever I listened to the OG Freestyle. There's a certain energy that it has. Obviously, it won't sound as good as the recorded version, but the original thought is always so hard. I prefer performing than the recorded because… I can translate that performance and the emotion of the song. A recording won't necessarily fully convey, because you can't see me and in the live show, you can see me. So you can feel that, how much I care, or how much it means to me as well.

It's kind of like the difference between when you listen to a hardcore punk record. No matter how angry they are, you don't really feel the anger until you see them live, and you're like, these guys are fucking angry.

Black Fondu: (laughs) Yeah, yeah, it's so true.

I read that some of your initial musical experience was pm piano learning classical composers. Do you feel like that's influenced your approach to songwriting?

Black Fondu: Oh, heavily. Heavily, even now. Even now, literally, the beat I made yesterday, I listened to it today, and I was thinking the arrangement is so classical, I was like, this is some real classical shit. When I was younger, I absorbed a lot of what my dad would call it high art, or what did we call it? God-touched music, y’know what I mean? Where almost the universe has intervened. Even Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson, I say God touched, y’know, like some high art music. Naturally I know a few things about the piano. I know a few things about theory, but I never used theory. Because I rejected it when I was learning it. I had to learn it to get through the grades, but I rejected it because it made me think of maths, and I was like, maths, I hate maths. So, I hated structure, but believe it or not, that arranging style has stayed with me, because clearly I liked it, y’know. So, naturally, when I arrange. I do everything that I want to do, and at the end, I listen, and I'm thinking. Wow kinda classical. Kinda classical.

Is there anything else you feel like you kind of soaked up when you were younger, musically, that's wormed its way into your sound?

Black Fondu: My mum is a good example of that. She'd be singing around the house all the time. But she wouldn't be singing songs like we know songs, you know, it's like some old stuff that obviously came through generations. It’s just these beautiful, timeless, childlike melodies. They kind of stayed with me, and I'm so attracted to that state, y’know, the child state. Because a lot of the melodies I'm drawn to are quite. child-friendly. Not too complex, melodically, y’know? I like melody to be easy to fall into. My brother also is one. He makes music, um, under the name OF CANAAN now.  But he'd be playing guitar and singing and I'd be there to hear it, to feel it, and it was always emotional, always deep, there's some real deepness to it. I think with my kind of music it has to be honest. It just has to be honest. That's what I've learned from listening to God knows how many hours of music. If the work isn't honest, you can tell, and that isn't timeless. There's gonna be some human energy to it, some really honest work. That doesn't mean that it has to be sad, or it has to be happy it doesn't have to be anything. But it just has to, like, have some intention. I'm getting all philosophical, but whether with thought or without thought it's honest, in my opinion, because that comes from within me. That's why I do it. I don't need to really question it. I just have a feeling, and then I'm like, I gotta do that.

I really get that just going with your gut directly with the art.

Black Fondu: Exactly, exactly.

I was watching over your music videos, and they're all, like, so distinct. They each have, their own distinct visual world to them. What inspires those visuals?

Black Fondu:  Basically I'll write a song and when I'm listening to it, whether I'm high or sober or whatever. I'll be thinking in my head about the feelings that I'm feeling, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I'll get images and I'll be transported into a new space, where the music exists. Foreach of these songs, I will close my eyes, and I imagine the video. Then I would obviously create that. i'm not sleeping’ with a different one, though because that came to me in a dream. I was having quite an overwhelming fucking dream where these Roman, sculptures were just flying into my face. In this void, like, black space, and they just kept coming in all these different poses, and it just kept increasing the speed. It got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore, and I just woke  up and then I asked myself, I said, why did I have that dream? And then I said it was pretty cool, though, like the textures and the idea that these things were coming towards me. So for ‘im not sleeping’, I did exactly that. I got all these different poses to come towards the screen in a deep void. So yeah, I get inspired by the subconscious that kind of drives the the ship.

We’re any tracks inspired by dreams that you've had?

Black Fondu:  Ooh, okay. You know what? There was this dream I had ages ago, which kind of inspired everything after that, to be honest. I used to have, like, so much self-doubt and as a solo artist, obviously it's just you, it's just me and my beats. I was about 18 or 19 a dream came to me where one of my favourite artists had invited my brother and I to his house. We went upstairs and he basically had his laptop out, and he clicked play, and there was, like, ten of us just surrounding him in a circle, and he went insane, like, the music was so good, and I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard. And when I woke up, I was like, that new song is gonna be crazy, whatever he made and then I realised that I dreamt that, so it came from me. Maybe it didn't inspire a song, like an idea for a song but it did inspire my self-belief. I was like if that was in my mind, then I can really make that one day if I keep going.

What do you love right now?

Black Fondu: What do I love right now? I love going to sleep. Fuck yeah.

What do you hate right now? 

Black Fondu: What do I hate right now? I hate not being able to sleep.

Name an album you're still listening to from when you were younger, and why it's still important to you?

Black Fondu: There is one I actually have on repeat all the fucking time. Takeko Minikawa Roomic Cube. One of the songs I've just been, oh my god, it's called Destron. It's so beautiful. I guess that's my biggest inspiration, Takeko Minikawa or maybe just Japanese noise outright. It's like this abrasiveness, but there's some beauty, like, there's some real beauty and the way she sings and all of that, it reminds me of the Beatles, but really, really hard, like, it's so cool. Just her.

When someone hears your music for the first time, what do you hope sticks with them?

Black Fondu: That they're allowed to be y’know, the alien, like, completely authentically you. You don't have to be afraid to be yourself. Even though the world makes it so difficult for you to be yourself. I want people to take from it that we’re all aliens deep, deep, deep at the core, you know, very alone and very far away from everything. But that's okay, y’know. S maybe I want my music to be that kind key to that door. Just not to wake people up, but to make them feel more okay. It's okay to be fucked up, and it's okay to be crazy. That's literally the nature of nature.

Photography By: Jago Stock