PREVIOUSLY going under the name Trafic des airs, TDA is the newly compressed to initials only, dark industrial mask of Samuel Gougoux, elsewhere a member of Montreal’s no-wave dance-punk band VICTIME.
Samuel released a cassette-only EP, titled for the name he’s now adopted, back in August 2019; the drums are so much to the fore in his work, as you can tell from a dive into a track like “Crayonette”, all dispossessed vocals, glitch haze and big, stark rhythms.
Newly abbreviated, Samuel is releasing his first album as TDA towards the end of April, and the dark confection of industrial and no wave gains has gained new edges; “Présence” can be your black light into his latest work – you can hear that below. With the drums like a fist on a brick wall and the French vocals, it brings to mind no one less than Geneva’s The Young Gods for me, lurching deeper into a vast wilderness. The video’s just down below.
Samuel has this to say of the track: “Présence’ is the portrait of a well-presented table. This piece is a reminder of the effort that evaporates into pleasure.
“Was it worth it? It’s a chalkboard to remind us that hunger is always lurking.”
This all forebodes of an album, Ascète, on April 23rd; the first glimpses of which, we’re told, came on tour with Canadian indie-rockers Corridor, contemplating the passing landscape. Upon return to his hometown of Bas-St-Laurent, Quebec, he began sonically and visually documenting the local forests, isolating himself and exploring them at night, losing himself in a confrontation of childhood fears and becoming fascinated by the both the architectural and the percussive aspects of trees.
And it’s this skein of echoes transporting through woods that informs Ascète; melodic abrasion, diffusion, light emanating through shadows; sample sources from ropes and dripping water. The album will be accompanied by a limited zine of photographs he took while recording the album.
Will you join him on his journey into the deep, dark woods?
TDA’s Ascète will be released by Michel Records digitally and on limited edition vinyl with accompanying zine on April 23rd; you can order yours from the TDA Bandcamp page, now.
Follow TDA on Instagram; and Michel Records on Facebook and Instagram.
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