Guillaume Cazalet (CZLT) is one of the key figures in contemporary experimental music, operating at the intersection of improvisation, extreme metal, Indian music, free jazz, and conceptual sound art. Born in 1988 in France, the artist, who now lives in Brussels, is a musician, composer, producer, visual artist, and founder of the Homo Sensibilis Sounds label—a platform that initially served as an archive of his own work but has since evolved into a broader conceptual project combining music, philosophy, and reflections on perception.
Cazalet is the central figure in a vast ecosystem of musical projects, in which he operates under various aliases and configurations: from Neptunian Maximalism (NNMM), through ZAÄAR and Ôros Kaù, to SOL KIA and CZLT. Each of these projects explores a different sonic landscape—from cosmic drone metal and free jazz improvisation, through brutal forms of extreme metal, to inspirations drawn from Indian classical music and modal traditions such as Dhrupad and Khayal.
A key aspect of his work is the tension between improvisation and structure—Cazalet consistently develops peculiar musical language based on trance, duration, ritual, and the “emotional engineering” of sound. His projects are not merely musical ensembles, but rather fluid organisms in which music becomes a perceptual, spatial, and often quasi-ritual experience. It is precisely in this context that our conversation takes place—as an attempt to capture an artist for whom the boundary between composition, improvisation, philosophy, and the listening experience practically ceases to exist.
Artur Mieczkowski
Artur Mieczkowski: Your journey has led you from more classical forms to elaborate, ritualistic soundscapes – when did you realise that music could be more than just a composition?
Guillaume Cazalet: It was around 2004–2005 when I discovered Autechre through the albums “Draft 7.30” and “Untilted”. Around the same time, Meshuggah released “Catch Thirtythree”, which completed the picture for me.
With Autechre, the first reaction was a huge shock of incomprehension mixed with an addictive curiosity toward what they were doing. Once I had absorbed it, I no longer saw things the same way. Autechre uses principles of random generation, full of accidents, combining modular synthesizers with computer programs such as Max/MSP, developed at the sound research center IRCAM in Paris.
A.M.: Neptunian Maximalism is often described as a total experience – did you always envisage this project as something that went beyond the format of a concert?
G.C.: Yes, absolutely, because for me, the work of music production intended for industrial reproduction is an art form in its own right, distinct from live performance. The experience is not at all the same, so there are already two different spaces of existence where music is shaped according to both the means available and the listening context.
A.M.: In your music, time seems to be one of the key elements – stretched out, suspended, sometimes almost frozen. In projects such as Neptunian Maximalism or Arrokoth, the listener loses the sense of a linear sequence of events and begins to operate within duration rather than structure. How do you think about time when composing – do you treat it as something that can be shaped, or rather as a space into which you introduce sound?
G.C.: It is hard to choose, because these two definitions overlap in my approach. But the notion of time stretch interests me greatly. Altering perception – especially that of time and space – like in a psychedelic trance experience.
A.M.: The Arrokoth project seems to be the antithesis of Neptunian Maximalism – more minimalist, more introverted. Do you see it as a distinct language, or rather as a different perspective on the same idea?
G.C.: I would say it is one of the defining ingredients of NNMM, and that I also attach great importance to developing each of those ingredients in depth, as I do in my other projects: ZAÄAR for surreal and shamanic free jazz, Ôros Kaù for brutal black/death metal, CZLT and my solo work on Indian music, Khayal and Dhrupad, SOL KIA for industrial and futuristic metal, and so on.
A.M.: There is a strong element of ritual and the use of repetitive forms in Zaäar’s work – how do you strike a balance between a planned structure and spontaneity in this context?
G.C.: There is no planned structure. It is 100% free improvisation. On the other hand, like in all my projects, I do a great deal of studio work – arrangements, overdubs, cuts, and edits. Whenever possible, all the arrangements are done in a single take in order to remain coherent with the spontaneity of free improvisation. The rest is magic.
Free improvisation can induce a trance state and, in music, is equivalent to what apophantic discourse is in linguistics – something which, beyond being performative (as is the case in the practice of magic), is by nature neither true nor false.
A.M.: Where do you place Sol Kia in relation to your other projects – how does this approach to working with sound differ for you? How should the name be interpreted? Sol – Sun, Kia – a reference to the concept of Kia, Austin Osman Spare’s magical system? What’s behind this?
G.C.: Yes, absolutely – the interpretation is exactly in that direction. I am an admirer of AOS. For me, SOL KIA is close to Ôros Kaù, but, as I tend to say, strongly infused with DMT. At the same time, it also has a more futuristic side. It is a fantasy, a home-studio delirium. And Muzah’s vocals (Stéphane Van Tricht) are also a unique ingredient in this case.
A.M.: Your projects often strike a balance between improvisation and highly deliberate composition – where does one end and the other begin?
G.C.: It’s hard to say, because the boundary shifts completely depending on the various projects, and within each project depending on the period. For example, right now with NNMM we are working on a raga that I studied for a year and a half. We replay what I took as the compositional theme, but when it comes to the Jor/Jhala – the pulsed and then sustained section, built on improvisation within the rules of the raga and the rhythmic cycle – that is where the guitar takes a great deal of freedom.
A.M.: There is a strong physical dimension to your music – resonance, frequency, breath. To what extent do you consciously consider the listener’s body?
G.C.: I take that very much into account, since I am the first listener to my own music — the first to experience it. If a sound, a combination of sounds, a level of acoustic pressure, whether low or high, or any other parameter affects me particularly deeply, then I believe there is a strong chance it can affect an audience as well. In that case, I dig deeper.
In addition, Dhrupad singing teaches you to live inside the sound, to become aware of the different centers of sound production in the body, and ultimately forces a very fine attention. Right now, I am trying to pay more attention to subtleties in general. But I still plan to make big stoner doom too — subtle, though!
But when people talk about the body, they usually imagine the physical side of sound, meaning the bass frequencies most of the time. Yet composition and harmony have an extraordinary power over the psyche, which remains a cerebral activity. That too is the body. And we often forget that, because harmony in amplified popular music today tends toward homogenization, offering seductive sounds but poor melodic and harmonic development and too easy tonal relationship. The resulting aesthetic experience is therefore mediocre.
We need to move beyond familiar harmonic modes, explore temperament and microtonality, polyrhythm, and so on. That said, I am not an unconditional devotee of modal or tonal music, but if one chooses to flirt with it, then one has to make an effort and go further than the bare minimum.
A.M.: Your music often evokes a trance-like state—one that arises from repetition, intensity, and your work with time. Is this an element you consciously build into your music, or is it more of a side effect of the creative process?
G.C.: It is now fully integrated, even though it came about naturally at the beginning. But over time I’ve been able to observe combinations that work, and I understand increasingly well how to produce this or that effect on the listener.
In addition, my study of Indian Classical music and Indonesian Gamelan brings me a great deal in terms of emotional engineering, which I consider to be one of the functions of these musical traditions. Especially in Indian music, with its raga system, one is confronted with a kind of metaphysical catalogue of human emotions whose power of emotional suggestion is both precise and highly effective.
And of course, these musics unfold over long durations — the time of narrative within a musical performance — but they can also induce trance in other contexts, such as the practice of Kharaj, for example.
A.M.: Your work contains references to various systems – ranging from mythology and philosophy to ritual practices and more esoteric approaches to sound. Do you regard these traditions as genuine sources of inspiration, or rather as tools that enable you to create specific states of perception?
G.C.: Both. They have always been sources of inspiration and fascination, but also a prism through which I approach the world. This heightened state of perception — an augmented cognition, one could say — is essential for me in understanding things. For example, I am passionate about forms of music that I consider a kind of cognitive enhancer, which in a way improves and colours our way of thinking by acting simultaneously on the emotional and rational zones. The more refined the artistic form, the more powerful its capacity for amplification or cognitive distortion becomes. It leads us to think better. In this sense, art helps us become the best version of ourselves, on both an individual and a social scale.
As for mythology — and I would add prehistory — there are various reasons. One of them is that it seems to me that the most urgent question in philosophy concerns the distinction between “human” and “non-human”, meaning everything that is other: animals, flora and fauna, but also hominids who are, of course, considered sub-human. At what moment did this distinction arise in Western history, and why and how did it take hold?
Often, this shift appears at the transition between sedentary civilizations and more or less nomadic tribal cultures, or even in antiquity, when polytheistic beliefs still retained something fundamentally animistic. Since then we have taken the wrong path, and it is imperative to abandon this distinction if we want to address the crisis caused by the overwhelming and toxic presence of Homo sapiens on Earth.
A.M.: In your work, space – both physical and acoustic – seems to have a tangible influence on the shape of the music, from recording sessions to live performances. To what extent do you treat space as an active element of the composition, rather than merely the context in which the sound occurs?
G.C.: I studied architecture before entering the Beaux-Arts, so I have a particular attachment to reflections on space and on the architectural container as a resonating body in itself, of course. But architecture is also an art form made of symbols, aesthetic experiences, and so on. All of this influences a musician who does not produce fixed music.
Space becomes active in composition, for example, when reverberation causes a given sound to have a different lifespan. At that point, the musical discourse has to adapt, if it has not already. It is, after all, the most classic example. And of course, we also work with the material limits we have. Sometimes I would very much like to go further…
A.M.: In your music, it is difficult to separate form from experience – the structure often seems to be subordinate to what happens to the listener’s perception over time. How do you define the relationship between the composition and that experience?
G.C.: Yes indeed, composition in my case is often subordinated to experience – or even becomes the experience itself, as is the case in free improvisation contexts. But I also try the opposite approach. In any case, experience remains a driving force for me, especially since even though I went to music school when I was younger, I remain largely self-taught in what came after.
Now that I am studying the music of South Asia, I also try to explore what emerges from a discourse that stems from the mind itself. Both approaches blend, because I wanted to experiment with what a highly articulated discourse, with calculated progressions, can produce on the level of experience. This is also the result of technical constraints: the lineup, the available time of the musicians, their technical and theoretical background, production deadlines, and the destination of the work (live or recording).
For example, right now we have little time to respond to a situation where we need to prepare pieces very quickly, with sudden changes in lineup. In that case I adopt a parametric approach: when the music is not written note by note, I develop protocols to be followed by everyone, which structure and guide the improvisation. It can be framed by harmonic, theoretical, rhythmic or modular concepts, as well as by the choice of instrumentation, time slots allocated to each movement, and so on.
This is what we did last month during our live soundtrack in London at the Rio Cinema for the festival The Judgement Hall, accompanying the screening of the restored version of the Georgian film “The Legend of Suram Fortress”.
A.M.: Homo Sensibilis Sounds functions not only as a studio, but also as a space linked to many of your projects – from mixing to production. To what extent is this space a ‘technical tool’ for you, and to what extent is it an extension of the very idea of the music you create?
G.C.: Homo Sensibilis Sounds was originally my micro-label, functioning largely as a catalogue for my personal creations. At the same time, I wanted to connect my production work to it, forming a coherent whole under the banner of a single idea: «Homo Sensibilis is the future goal of the human being — the man who knows he doesn’t know. Here’s how he sounds»
Beyond being an object of philosophical reflection, it is also a posture, a predisposition of thought aimed at engaging with reflections on the distinction between human and non-human beings, as well as on animal intelligence. On this latter point, thero-architecture and thero-linguistics science – meaning, respectively, the architectural and poetic/artistic productions of animals – teach us how little we actually know, about thousands of things that stand before our eyes while we imagine we understand everything through the filter of anthropocentrism. (CF)
A.M.: What projects are you currently working on?
G.C.: I am currently working on a “heavy Dhrupad” project that blends a Hindustani approach with drone metal, alongside two professional musicians of Indian classical Dhrupad music – one on Pakhawaj, Alexis Weisgerber, the other on vocals and machines, Heikel Ben Mlouka – while I play amplified baritone guitar, for a result that is, to say the least, experimental.
In addition to that, I am also working on my solo project, directly connected to the approach I mentioned earlier. I am also developing new material with NNMM – the raga I spoke about, as well as the piece for the live soundtrack that we want to present in other cinemas. With ZAÄAR, there is a major release planned for this year that I have worked on extensively in recent months.
And whenever I have the time, I try to move forward with one of the four albums ready to be released for “Ôros Kaù”, for which the lyrics writing and vocal recordings still need to be completed. I take a very long time to write lyrics, that’s very painful to me – sometimes more than a week for a single song. I want the texts to carry a deep meaning for me, while also connecting with mythology, occultism, philosophy, politics, and so on.
A contemporary Gamelan approach infused with heavy guitar is also in my mind. And I’m involved into a Queer performative project as a vocalist that can shape shift into monster state, in echoes with freakiness core of the Queer, trans & drag culture.
A.M.: Thank you very much for the interview. I wish you the best of luck with your plans.
G.C.: Thank you as well!
Neptunian Maximalism
Homo Sensibilis Sounds
ZAÄAR
Arrokoth
Ôros Kaù
CZLT