NØISE Project At Subliminal Projects, Sunday September 18th 2016

Shepard Fairey, Joe Cassidy, Merritt Lear and John Goff

Obey Giant campaign-in-chief Shepard Fairey is launching his first musical project with electronic musician John Goff (tribal/experimental group Crash Worship, post punk/art rock collective Physics, and Sonic Solutions Incorporated) and it’s simply called NØISE. The project also features multi-faceted musician Joe Cassidy (symphonic Butterfly Child and electro-pop dance Assassins) and musician, filmmaker, editor Merritt Lear (also in the band Assassins).

After all these years, it was something unavoidable! Long-time vinyl collector, life-long music lover, Shepard Fairey’s art has always been inspired by music, however, he began DJing after working on the art and marketing for the DJ culture documentary ‘Scratch’, and in 2014 he finally co-founded NØISE with John Goff, a music project which combined his two creative passions, art and music.

The four of them were launching the project at Fairey’s Subliminal Projects on Sunday evening, and for the occasion, a lot of art created by Fairey was exposed, while everyone could watch the video the foursome made for their song ‘Little Lions’. Merritt Lear sings over the electronic pop composition with a loud and very sensual whisper, she looks stunning and plays such a show-stopper in this underground black and red bar (Fairey’s favorite colors), that the crowd become totally captivated and even hypnotized.. so that a posse of little thieves arrives and take everyone’s possessions, jewelry and money without any problem, while Fairey, Goff and Cassidy are silently and satisfyingly watching.

It’s certainly a very catchy pop song, a bit as if Massive Attack was going for a more upbeat pop vibe, while the whole project has mystery and class, and, of course, the perfect logo designed by Fairey himself.

An interesting part of the project is that NØISE’s debut EP features 8 different version of the same song, remixed by famous musicians and bands – The Crystal Method, Moby, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, DJ Phil Hartnoll, DJ and Producer Nico & Touch, Sonic Solutions Inc, and DJ Z-Trip. At the top of this, a spectacular special limited edition (of 500) double vinyl was available with new artwork by Fairey and artist Ravi Zupa, whereas ‘Little Lions’ will be released digitally on September 23rd. These remixes of the same song sounds very similar to Fairey’s artistic approach when he produces a series on the same theme, keeping the same idea like a variation around the same motif.

Scott Kirkland of The Crystal Method DJ-ed with Shepard Fairey for the rest of the evening, and if you ever want to know more about this interesting music-meets-art project, just visit NØISE Project.