smelliott: Noise, Chaos And The Future Of Raving

For smelliott, noise was never just about making something difficult to listen to. Starting out in jungle and drum & bass before diving headfirst into harsh noise and eventually harsh noise wall as a teenager, they’ve spent years testing how far electronic music can be pushed without losing its physical pull.

Now, that experimentation is feeding back into the dancefloor. Recent releases including Stay Lit, ‘RAVE r’, ‘mint flavouring’, ‘Unlimited exp’ and ‘i dont wanna go home’ find smelliott colliding IDM, techno, dubstep and trap with the abrasive textures of noise — using unpredictability, distortion and fluid song structures to disrupt the familiar logic of the EDM drop.

Their music is matched by visuals that move at the same frantic pace, while their live reputation has earned them descriptions ranging from “noise terrorist” to “ear flosser” — both of which they happily take as compliments.

With a growing catalogue, multiple side projects and ambitions that stretch far beyond the underground, smelliott is building a version of rave music where anything can happen next.

1. You started out making jungle and drum & bass before going deep into harsh noise and eventually harsh noise wall. What was it about noise that grabbed you so hard — and what did those years of making something so abrasive teach you about making dance music?

It just made me so excited. I felt like I was discovering something really new for the first time as an artist, and I just thought it was so cool. I was a teenager sitting in my room making tunes all day, it just felt so thrilling pushing my own boundries day in, day out. At first, in like mid-late 2023, around when I was making the music that would be on Boiling Computer Parts, I didn’t even know what noise music was. I was just playing with these new sounds, music I hadn’t heard before, and eventually I saw a video one day about Hanatarash, this OG noise band from Japan and even though I was completely in the box in terms of making music solely on the computer, I was like, yeah this is sick, it’s kind of like what I’m doing, but different time, different reasons. They were crazy as well, doing shit like throwing glass and metal at audiences, driving a bulldozer through the venue. People had to sign injury waivers before entering - the kind of stuff so edgy that would make a 15/16 year old explode because it’s just so out there.

It was also around the time I changed the music software I was using, just before I turned 16, and I felt so much more free and fluid creating and warping sounds in that space, I definitely had more room to flourish and experiment. That was when I started to shift from just beats into exploring sound in more abstract patterns and compositions.

It definitely taught me about what people really think ‘noise’ is. I think a lot of people these days are actually fine with abrasive sound, but it is always in predictable, easy rhythms and structures. Uptempo and other of the more extreme techno subgenres would be an easy example for me, where you get people trying to make the harshest kick, but it is so boring to me because you know exactly what is going to happen for the next hour after the first drop.

I think you can split ‘noise music’ into 2 main different categories, the harsh sound, and the fluid rhythm and structure, which is what I love the most: when people don’t know what’s coming next, when literally anything might happen and people don’t have a clue. Combining that with super harsh, abrasive sounds can just amplify the effect.

In terms of bringing that to dance, I think it’s all about reduction and careful placement. You want to give people just enough to draw them in, and then add just enough for them to go - hold on what the fuck is happening - without skipping the song. But I don’t think I’m there just yet. I also think it trained my ear to make cool sounds, and to know where to include them.

I’ve been playing the drums since I was a kid, like 7 years old, so I feel most confident writing drums, and when I’ve made a sound, synthesised or otherwise, I can hear where to place it within the drums, in my head. Working reductively is also helpful for me, and something I only started doing when moving towards EDM - I usually start tunes with a beat and then start hearing sounds in my head that I then make, but I usually like to get extremely noisy first and then reduce, reduce until I’m somewhere on a borderline. Some of my most recent tracks though, like i dont wanna go home, don’t even need that process. Songs like that, I just have a bassline and it’s kind of the whole song.

2. You describe harsh noise as a “tool” for making EDM less predictable and more raw. What do you think noise can do to dance music that a conventional synth, beat or drop simply can’t?

For me, impact is all about expectation and anticipation. So it really is different for each person whether or not noise will provide a better reaction from the crowd. Sometimes, I think you can tell exactly what the drop is going to be, and the release of tension is just perfect when it drops, and you get what you expect. But sometimes it gets boring, and when the DJ plays something so out there and so unexpected, it hits 1000x more. In a live set, I think it’s something that someone better than me simply knows what to do. If you are hearing straight mental shit all night, you might get tired. Sometimes you need something like bread and butter, to cleanse the palette.

Fluidity in song structure is the most important aspect I carried through from making harsh noise. I feel like that's what makes my songs different at the end of the day. I’m not trying to make a verse/chorus or a direct buildup and drop, I’m just letting the structure of the song flow through itself. Once I have the beginning of a song, it doesn’t really take me too long to have the whole main structure spread out. It’s almost like I’ll listen to what I have so far, and then when the clip ends I just keep hearing the tune in my head, I hear where it’ll go, and I bring it to life. It also gives me a lot more freedom in creating, it makes the process so smooth and enjoyable.

It’s not to say I never repeat parts in songs, but to say that I just work intuitively. Sometimes I hear a part repeating in my head, but often I’m led towards new sections. I put this into practice more purposefully in my most recent singles but I think it’s most clear in a song like dude, I gotta stay lit AF, there’s so many different ideas in that track.

In my newer songs I’ve definitely been keeping it more cohesive, the basslines are usually pretty similar throughout, which I like. This, along with the fact that I haven’t really been straying from familiar 16, 8, and 4 bar divisions allows an audience to stay immersed while I continue onto new parts.

I think that’s how I got bored of the straight harsh noise I was making. I needed to branch out, to get stuck into something different again, to evolve it in a different way, and it’s definitely how I got bored of harsh noise wall. In its principle it never changes, it is one continuous sound, and I’m young and probably have a fused attention span. It’s not for me, at least right now. I crave fast paced songs that people want to move to.

3. Between Stay Lit, ‘RAVE r’, ‘mint flavouring’ and all your recent singles, there’s a real sense of controlled chaos in both the music and visuals. How important is it for you that the videos feel as intense and unpredictable as the tracks themselves?

Yeah, thank you, I think music videos are really important, for me the most important part of the song in a way. I remember when the video for dude, i gotta stay lit AF got like 1000 views. I was like, fuckk I’ve made it, but no other videos have done that well so far, to some dismay. But yes, I think it’s most important. Not only are you reaching a whole other audience, on youtube say, but I think it opens up a whole load more possibilities with a song.

For my tune Rave R! I was filming the music video in this crazy hotel resort in Busan, it was like 2 or 3 in the morning and it was completely empty. It felt so uncanny, like I was in the backrooms or something. I had the idea that I was looking for something, looking for this rave that I was never going to find. But I wouldn’t have had that idea without getting to film in that space at that time. I love that music video, and it’s definitely one of my favourite songs I made/released recently.

I’m beginning to feel although the videos I’ve been putting out have become a bit stale. I’ve repeated the same kind of idea since the Stay Lit EP, with fast chopping visuals matching mostly with the beat is cool but, I’m not sure I want it to be the only thing I produce. I’m not really the best videographer, I think with later releases and bigger projects I want to get more involved with proper filming and stuff, like a videographer. Despite that, Rave R!, through to the last song I’ll release this year are kind of like diary entry songs for me, since I am just releasing them as singles, I like that they remain raw and relatively unfiltered - just cut to audio. I will continue to explore different ideas with videos as time goes, maybe using singles to experiment a little more - oh, and I still want to do a music video for mint flavouring.

4. You’ve been called everything from a “noise terrorist” to an “ear flosser” — which, frankly, sounds like a pretty strong press kit. What’s the most ridiculous reaction you’ve ever had to your music, either from an audience or at one of your shows?

Not too extreme that I recall... other than being given those names. Mostly things one could expect. One time a couple years ago I played at this open mic in Gravesend (shoutout Joe and Harriet, Hypermedia rules) and I think there’s a video somewhere of 4-5 elderly people leaving the venue as I’m playing. It’s a night where I used to go tons with my mum before I moved out, but it was mostly people reading poetry and dudes with acoustic guitars.

My favorite reaction I’ve had is when I did a performance at Metamorphika Studios for the closing of The Coven show, I think November last year, and I played about 40 minutes of this set specifically for the exhibition, and one of my friends came to see and she fell asleep! I thought it was so funny, because everyone kind of just gave me a regular reaction and she was just...sleeping. Crazy, but since I’ve actually heard some people talking about the many parallels between ambient music and noise music so it makes sense to me in some ways. I’ve definitely fallen asleep to harsh noise wall before, in recent memory too.

5. You’ve said, “It might not happen straight away, but the way you rave is gonna change.” What does the future of a smelliott rave actually look and feel like — and how far do you want to push people outside their comfort zone?

I’ve got big aspirations, what can I say. Skies the limit as far as I’m concerned. I mean, I’m definitely making the most mainstream music of my life right now, but I’ll always go in a direction I find exciting, it just happens to be the dancefloor at this time. I just want to take people with me where I go. I’m still growing, changing a lot as a musician, as a producer and everything.

I think as I keep improving my vision will keep changing and growing, with more ambition each time. Right now I feel pretty good, but like I said I’m always pushing onto the next thing, and I know it’ll sound better in a week, in a month, in a year and in 10. I’d love to break into the mainstream. I think it’d be sick to play my music, as noisy or regular as I like, in front of tens of thousands of people and those people be there for ME. Maybe Aphex Twin can open for me.

I don’t even know what a smelliott rave looks like... I’m looking at my computer most of the time but I’ll let you know when I glance up. Ideally they are full!