Interview with Zpor, intergalactic singer of HENGE

HENGE is a band of aliens touring Europe with a style of music they call cosmic dross. Their last album “Alpha Test 4” was released 2023 and after a concert in Stockholm Gonzo Gazette got an exclusive interview with leadsinger Zpor.    

The 4:th of April the progressive rock n´ rave band HENGE landed in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, to perform their first concert ever in the country in Hus 7. Gonzo Gazette was there to report about the show and wrote a review of it. After a bit more than a hours travel into space, powered by the groups musical output and the euphoria of the audience, we all landed safely in Stockholm again and HENGE got of stage.

Before leaving the venue we caught lead singer and founder of the the band, Zpor, for an interview. Here it is! 

Hi Zpor! First of all. From where in the universe do you originate?

– Greetings Human. I come from Agricular in Cosmos Redshift 7. This planet no longer exists. It was engulfed by its parent star which expanded in its latter years then eventually died. Fortunately, my species left the planet long before this cataclysmic celestial event occurred. We set up new homes on the uninhabited planets of neighbouring star systems. Terraforming planets was something we Agriculans particularly excelled at. There is something in our nature which is excited by using technology to bring life to barren worlds.

When were you born then?

– I am an exceptionally ancient being, with a lifespan equivalent to billions of Earth-years. My essence is contained within an orb that sits on top of a cloned body. This body can be replaced when needed. This is how I have been able to live so long and travel such vast distances of interstellar space.

What kind of place was your home planet?

– From the deep ochre soil of the fertile planes, to the liquid forests of Westish Nomp, through the elysian glades of microfilament and over the vast curd mountains of Equatorial Dingpipe, rural Agricular was a beautiful place with an atmosphere that was delicious to breathe. Our bustling cities were cultivated using bio-hacked plant life and we had mycelial networks running our civic infrastructure.

Zpor gasps, swallows and continues:

– In Agriculan culture, music was not separated from the rest of daily life as it sometimes is on other worlds. From birth we were swaddled in sound. Younglings were weened on the 23 notes of the Agriculan mode and these musical notes were as food to our babies. Vitamins, proteins and rich mineral chord progressions provided the basis of both our sustenance and our education. And though it is billions of years since I last looked out over Agricular’s brave electric fields or bathed in the warm lilac ocean of Conk-a-paneenoo, during quieter moments I can still hear the lilting song of the lesser-agitated sky eel in my mind’s ear. 

Did you and HENGE come to earth intentionally or did you just happen to drop by?

– It was something of an accident actually. Several billions of years ago we were exploring some of the more rural areas of the Milky Way Galaxy when we stumbled upon your neighbouring planet Venus. Back then, the planet was not like it is now – a hot, sulphuric stinkhole – rather, it had a pleasant breathable atmosphere and some exquisite vegetation. What is more, the planet was teeming with complex life including an intelligent race of beings which we call Venusians. We discovered that these Venusians had developed an advanced, industrial society but were a dangerously competitive and somewhat barbaric species. Overconsumption and a flagrant disregard for biodiversity on their planet had allowed a runaway greenhouse effect to take hold. Sadly, we arrived on the planet in the midst of this climate apocalypse when too many tipping points had been passed and there was no way to recover the atmosphere. We managed to save one specimen – the creature we call Brother Goo, who has since become a dear friend and valuable member of our crew. Whilst fleeing his dying planet we came across a second rocky planet in the same habitable zone of the Yellow Dwarf star that Venus orbits. Recognising its potential as a place where life could evolve yet seeing how lacking in water it was, we diverted a few large ice asteroids which struck the planet that you now call Earth. As we flew by, we dropped a tracker on the planet and made a plan to one day return to see if life had evolved.

You’re saying life on earth was engineered or invented by Agriculans. Does it mean that humans should look upon you as their creator?

– The plants do not look upon the gardener as their ‘creator’. Life comes from the seed and then requires certain conditions to thrive. You may plant a seed or even engineer conditions for life, it does not make you a god.

For me as a human, it sounds as if the style of music you are playing, cosmic dross, has been inspired by various earthly styles of music. How can that be if it was invented before you visited Earth?

– The similarities that you perceive between Cosmic Dross and the earthly styles of which you speak is largely coincidental. And you may already know that there are certain laws of physics regarding sound that have an influence on the choices musicians make. For example the pentatonic scale has been used by almost every musical tradition on Earth. The indigenous communities of North America had no contact with the ancients of China, nor did the rural Africans of antiquity meet the Celts of Ireland, yet their folk music is based on a combination of the same five notes and these musics are amazingly similar (but for the tone and timbre of the instrumentation and style of vocalisations). This is explainable via the physics of the harmonic series; compelling, resonant relationships between notes that vibrate the air and stir the emotions.

But you also have a human band member?

– Yes. That said, when we landed on Earth nine years ago we welcomed a human into our group. This homo sapien (known as Grok) is a master of the synthesiser and he has helped us to fine tune our alien frequencies for maximum efficacy on the human nervous system. He introduced us to the music known as ‘rave’ and we have discovered that some of these sounds are extremely effective in the manufacturing of euphoria.

Is it true that your spaceship runs on music, and how does that work?

– Yes, music is more powerful than you Earthlings might realise…

He clears his throat:

– We have a method of tuning frequencies so as to create a waveform so dense that it can propel our ship though space at immense speeds. Most of the thrust comes via a bass propulsion unit at the rear of the craft. However for take off and landing situations it is more efficient to use our gravity inverter. This flips the gravitational force, throwing the ship out into space at the exact inverse of a planet’s pull. As we travel further from the planet the force of the reversed gravity becomes weaker and it becomes necessary to engage the bass propulsion unit.

Can you explain the technicality of that a bit more detailed?

– We have tweeters positioned all around the ship’s exterior. The tweeters are used to control the ship’s direction and are manipulated via short percussive sounds. Various rhythms are required to make positional adjustments. And for certain situations, when travelling through an asteroid belt for example, our drummer Nom must be especially vigilant and his rhythms come to the fore in order to secure a safe passage through turbulent terrain. Fortunately Nom is very in tune with the ship and is able to complete complex manoeuvres with relative ease on account of his natural groove and many tentacles. Riffs are used as anchor positions which calibrate the craft gyroscopically. Without this we might lose our relative position in the universe.

Probably I look like a surprised racoon, since I can´t grasp this at all with my flawing pitiful human scientific knowledge, but Zpor just rambles on:

– Additionally we have the ability to gain extra power from the collective euphoria that is generated among the audience at a HENGE live music transmission. We take the mixture of joy, sweat and existential wonder and use it to create biofuel which turbo charges the ship’s engines. As musicians we are required to adapt tempo, timbre and harmony depending on the gravitational conditions. For this reason we must keep our imaginations sharp as a band. That is why we start and end every day with twenty-minute soak in the astral bath. 

I guess that you are trying to stop earth from meeting a similar destiny than what you just told me about Venus, but what can humans do to stop this from happening? 

– Well, in approximately 7.59 billion years Planet Earth will be engulfed by the Sun as it expands and dies. There is nothing that you can do to stop this. Therefore humans must leave their home planet eventually. But your species has made very little progress towards setting up new homes on other planets. All the while you trash your atmosphere through rampart consumption of frivolous distractions. You must undertake the rapid decarbonisation of your atmosphere as a matter of urgency if you are to stand any chance of surviving long enough to colonise other planets. We wish you luck, humans!

What are HENGE’s musical plans on earth? Are you releasing any new music in the near future?

– We will continue to transmit our sacred alien frequencies to as many human specimens as possible. This includes releasing music in recorded form as well as hosting gatherings all over the planet.