Nomex: Paroxism EP released in digital format June 2026
Nomex: Paroxism EP – Praxis 60 – an ongoing project
The Paroxism EP by Nomex is released on digital format on June 1, 2026 with the catalogue number Praxis 60. It’s an album the artist was working on around 2010 intended for release on Praxis. It remained unfinished at the time of his death in 2014.
As can be expected it is a distinguished exercise in brutal noisescapes. It fits perfectly in his life’s work as it is distinct from his other records.
Adverse Noise
Noise artist and film maker Paul Kidd aka Nomex was behind some iconic experimental releases of the 1990s. He was an explorer of the physical nature of noise and its relations to vinyl, his preferred medium.
Several of his records explored and articulated this interaction, often on his own Adverse label.
- A Moment in Eternity/Language of Dissatisfaction (Adverse 1) – the sound of the needle playing the label,
- Desiring E.P.2 (Adverse 3) – a power drill used as turntable, and
- Are You Anything More Than Just A Product of Your Influence? (Adverse 12) – featuring dual parallel grooves, one cut on 16rpm and one on 78rpm.
Other works veered into sound collage and beat destruction, such as The Bruitist Shaper on Reverse Records, and – what is perhaps his masterpiece – Trocante Gramofony E.P. released on Praxis in 1999 (Praxis 33).
Important to mention are also his collaborations with DJ Scud with the two classic 7″s
- Eurostar/Piling Machine and
- Total Destruction on the Maschinenbau label, both re-released by Praxis on one 12″ in 2018 (Maschinenbau EP, Praxis 56).
He also experimented with extreme noise frequencies at live gigs, some of which were documented on a series of CDRs on Adverse in 1997. All of these have now been uploaded to our YouTube channel). Much later, in 2010, there was a legendary live show at Knochenbox in Berlin which was captured from two different angles.
Ever since the release of Trocante Gramofony, there had been talk about doing a follow up for Praxis. And on occasion of his Berlin visit in 2010 the project was revived. After returning to New Zealand Nomex indeed worked on a new album for Praxis in 2010-2011.
At least some of the material for it was finished, some may have been still a work in progress, in any case he didn’t make a final selection and the final order of tracks was not compiled at the time of his death in 2014.
We compiled it as close as possible to what we think his intentions would have been and as to be expected it’s a killer noise album!
Timelines of the release
Unfortunately the release of the album also dragged on. I finally made it a priority to put out the vinyl to coincide with the 10th anniversary of his death in 2024. But the whole business was going through a profound crisis with overall poor sales and scant interest.
The first tracks were put up on the Praxis SoundCloud page. I pulled all the registers at my disposal to make the vinyl happen. Special deals in the Praxis shop, a vinyl fundraiser via Gofundme, as well as digging out rarities from the label archives and selling them. Some money was trickling in, but overall the result of these efforts was rather sobering. My mistake may have been that I was hoping to kickstart things to a point where I could put out four or five releases and effectively relaunch the label, rather than just one record. So expenses were spread over mastering cost for different releases (some of which won’t even come out now…).
Still I remained optimistic enough to try and bring the Nomex record to the pressing stage by starting a discounted pre-sale. The result was tragic, only seven copies were sold (with another two since then).
In the meantime people in the business gave me the well-meant advice to just re-press Praxis records from the 90s. One said “then you can press all the Nomex records you want”.
Even this is only partially true – the re-presses I did release in the last years mostly sold fine, but hardly exceptionally.
The Plan and the Pledge
Without going more into tedious details how difficult the business environment for marginal independent vinyl production has become, back to the current plan to get the Nomex record – and soon enough the other pending releases – out.
We release the Paroxism EP digitally on June 1st on bandcamp and a little bit later on streaming services. It remains – and will be (re-)promoted – as a vinyl pre-sale at the same time. However I will add a time limit to this: If the record is not actually in physical production within six months – by the end of November (either fully released or at least on physical test press) – the vinyl project will be aborted and all presales reimbursed.
It would break my heart not to be releasing this on vinyl. And I will do my best to make it happen this year. But I also have to move on, so in the worst case it will exist as a digital release.
Christoph Fringeli in May 2026
- Article about Nomex by Jo Burzynska from the Almanac for Noise & Politics
- Nomex and Adverse Records discography compiled and commented by Christoph Fringeli
- Nomex’s Trocante Gramofony E.P. (Praxis 33)
- Nomex discography on discogs.com
The plan for the vinyl edition of Nomex’s Paroxism EP.
The record will be pressed in a limited and numbered edition with a hand stamped label and sleeve as well as a 30x30cm cover graphic/poster inlay and postcard in an edition of probably 100, maybe 150 copies. Finer details of this may yet change/vary as we’re figuring out the production cost and details. Details might slightly vary. We’ll include a download code for digital tracks.
In case we fail to raise the funds to press the record and you preordered the vinyl you can choose between two options of re-imbursement, either by a €20 voucher for purchases in the Praxis Shop (even if you paid less for the presale, or a €15 cash refund. In either case of course you “keep” the digital files.
Please consider buying a copy in advance from the Praxis Store (click on screenshot below)…
… or, even better, SUPPORT OUR ACTIVITIES WITH A SUPER-SUBSCRIPTION!
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