Here come fresh news from Ni, unveiling today Chicot, the latest single from their new album Fol Naïs. That is due to break into your home and smash the dishes on December 1st via Dur & Doux.

As Zerkon and Dagonet plainly announced, this is undoubtedly the most intense album from start to finish from the Rhône-Alpes band, made up of members of L'Effondras, PoiL Ueda and PinioL. And this Chicot, named after the jester of Henry III and then Henry IV, is fully in line with this guideline. With its speedy tempo and math-rock epilepsy, it's a track that "gets its teeth out and scratches the dance floor", according to Ni. Somewhere between Mr Bungle, Don Caballero and Botch!

Because Ni never does anything like the others, and if you want to know what you might be getting yourself into when you listen to Chicot, here's what it sounds like when you ask guitarist François Mignot to describe it:

"The beginning of the track is super tense and nervous, using only dissonances, successions and superimpositions of notes close together, drawing a sort of grating melody. To accentuate this incisive edge, the guitar sounds remain clear, and saturation doesn't arrive until later in the track. The rhythm, which is omnipresent throughout the track, is based on figures which, although broken in math rock style, are intended to retain a danceable feel. At the beginning of the track, 3 of the 4 musicians play the same rhythmic motif in unison, to give it a certain foundation and a wobbly groove. The second guitar sits on top like a clever little buffoon, whose aim is to disrupt and add an extra dose of madness to the whole. This first passage is punctuated by short sounds often found in electronic music (glitch and other typical breakcore effects), which introduce a second technoid array. It consists of a rhythmic ostinato hammered out by the 4 musicians, always accentuated by the bass drum, then coloured and textured by the guitars and bass in the manner of an electronic track. This part takes the form of a great climb towards an explosion of energy, bringing back the shaggy, squeaky elements of the beginning, while transforming them into a more rock and massive energy. This transition, like an echo of the beginning, leads the track into a final tableau where the tempo and rhythm collapse, like a sudden drop from the heights of energy reached previously. The listener is then invited, by a surge of rock, noise and metal energy, to land and end up buried under the rubble of the track."

Listen + share:

Ni - Chicot (Visualizer)

For anyone already familiar with Ni, the title of their third album is bound to raise a smile. Fol Naïs, literally "born mad" in Old French, or the appellation given to the fools and jesters of history's great rulers. This symbol of impertinence couldn't be more appropriate for this new release from the most unclassifiable of Rhône-Alpes quartets.

Complex, dissonant, shaggy, it's all there. But their formidable inventiveness and unexpected danceable side make them a leader in the musical niche. Math Rock? Noise? Metal? Jazz? Ni take another step in their quest for the Holy Grail, displaying as much mischief as wrath.

Listen + watch:

Ni - Dagonet (official video)

Renowned for their "silly and bouncy" (sic) sound, Ni tried their hand at darker, heavier music on Pantophobie (2019), reflecting the period the band was going through. The bells of Fol Naïs sound the hour for a return to faster tempos, but not without affirming an instrumental renewal:

"This is the great dilemma for any band: how to successfully carry a legacy from the past while renewing itself? With Fol Naïs, we consider it a success in this sense, as it's an album that doesn't feel like a rehash of Pantophobie. Pantophobie had run its course, and it was time to react. Re-accelerating the tempo could be the breaking point. We wanted to open even more doors. We wanted to tap into the energy of metal, without having the color of it since we also dipped into old formulas that unify our sound."

On these 10 new tracks, Ni delights more than ever in blurring the lines and confusing their audience, remaining true to their desire to go further in experimentation. A call to modernity, guitarists Anthony Béard and François Mignot exploit new pedals, driven by a desire for synthesizer-like sounds, deepening their alchemy with the anarchic rhythm section of Benoit Lecomte (bass) and Nicolas Bernollin (drums).

From "Zerkon", as chaotic as it is jovial, we know that the ears we're addressing are preferably the most seasoned. The tension is palpable on the following tracks, which are hybrids of Don Caballero and Meshuggah ("Chicot", "Dagonet"), when they aren't sprinkled with the breakcore of Igorrr ("Brusquet") or the all-out rage of Botch ("Rigoletto"). Fortunately, Ni easily manages to incorporate relative breaths ("Berdic", the triptych "Triboulet"), culminating in the slow, ambient "Cathelot", with its hurdy-gurdy conveying a certain elevation. Pirouettes and nose-thumbing at musical convention follow one another. Which only adds to the meaning of each track on this new album, all named after real-life jesters:

"Historically, the jester's spectacles were the moments when the masks fell off. The rulers and their courts accepted all frontal and openly declamatory criticism, mixed with art, mime, something that was lived. As artists and musicians, this is how we fit in. Our own buffoonery leads us to go against the grain of what's expected of us. You want Ni to be a jazzy noise band? Well, we've failed!"

It’s all there, Ni is always complex, dissonant and shaggy. But their formidable inventiveness and unexpected danceability make them a leading light in the French musical niche. With Fol Naïs, Ni takes another step in their quest for the Holy Grail, displaying as much mischief as wrath.

Pre-order the album here: https://niiii.bandcamp.com/album/fol-na-s