NOVA
LUX.
Into the unknown.
Nova Lux on Sonder, a forest clearing instead of the expected drop and music that finds its own rules.
SONDER · SOUND / MEDIA ARTA track hints at where it might go. A melody repeats, arpeggios join in and a destination seems to emerge. Then Nova Lux takes it somewhere else. Sonder begins with that freedom: rather than fitting every sound into a finished concept, listening to the world it could create.
Based in Vienna, Nova works with sound and media art. The artist’s portfolio spans Oscilloscope Music, video works such as Serenity.exe and Everyday A New Hope, and music released as Nova Lux. A new collection of small experiments began in 2023. By late 2025, these sketches were becoming pieces connected not by a plot, but by a succession of emotional states.
The concept can wait.
After projects with defined concepts, Nova wanted to discover sounds more playfully again. There was no next thesis to prove: just sounds and sketches, with the sorting coming later. Sonder grows out of that open practice. The pieces belong together without needing a single clear story imposed on them.
When did the first ideas become Sonder? Was there a piece or an experiment that made you realise they could form a coherent album?
I had the first ideas in 2023. In the past, I made a lot of music and sound art based on very concrete concepts. After one of those rather cerebral projects, I wanted to approach music more playfully again and discover new sounds without having to meet predetermined expectations. Over time, that produced lots of small sound experiments and song sketches.
At the end of 2025, I began sorting those sketches, and a few pieces emerged that, for me, tell a story together. Not a story with a clear narrative, but more a succession of emotional states that sounds can describe better than words.
Not a story with a clear narrative, but a succession of emotional states.
The path leads to a forest clearing.
Orb Trail became the first piece and helped set the direction of the album. Its initial idea could have led to a pop-oriented track. Nova chose not to follow that possibility to its predictable conclusion. The change of direction becomes an image for the wider project: an excursion whose rules emerge along the way. Orb Trail is already available on Bandcamp.
Orb Trail is already accessible before the album. What sound or musical idea was its starting point? Tell us how that changed as you worked on it.
Orb Trail was the first piece on the album and, in a way, set its direction. It starts with a repetitive melody and slowly builds through arpeggios and bubbling sound design, but then moves away from the hinted-at synth fragments into the unknown. It began as a sketch with simple melodies that could have become a poppy track. As I kept working, it felt as if the track wanted to reach a predetermined destination, but I preferred to lead it off the path to a forest clearing. In a way, Orb Trail is the starting point for an excursion into a magical world with unfamiliar rules.
Club music, remembered differently.
Genres do not simply disappear here. Their elements carry associations and bodily responses even when Nova removes them from their usual surroundings. A wall of synths can suggest a drop that never arrives; a rhythm can pull a piece in an unexpected direction. For Cave Tendrils, the movement of a pumpkin plant became the starting point for an imagined sonic world.
The description of Sonder mentions fragments of club music. When working, how do you know that a rhythm or sound should stay in a piece, even if it functions differently there than on a dancefloor?
I like working with a post-genre approach. Elements of particular genres can create associations and intuitive responses, and sometimes have an even stronger effect when they appear in isolation in a different context. For example, the slippery, swampy stomping in Stalactite Sonar takes an unexpected direction through a driving synthwave bassline. Or, after finely detailed sound design, you suddenly find yourself facing an epic wall of synths reminiscent of Eurotrance, which then simply disappears again instead of delivering the beat drop.
Cave Tendrils was inspired by a pumpkin plant whose twisting tendrils grow so quickly you can almost watch them, wrapping around anything in their way. Cave Tendrils is a fairly pictorial sonic representation of how I imagine those tendrils in an oversized, slightly threatening form, taking over the world around them. At the climax, voice-like wobble sounds come together into a dubstep beat.
Shared listening becomes a live set.
The 15 October appearance at Spitzer was initially planned as a listening session. In this interview, Nova updates that plan: it will be a live set, using selected album parts as material for one evolving piece. The idea of shared listening remains alongside it as an invitation for home — close your eyes and follow the emotional stations.
The Spitzer programme for 15 October announced a listening session for your album. How do you want to present the music there? What can listening together in that room reveal that might be less apparent at home?
It was initially planned as a listening session, but it will now be a live set after all. I want to focus on certain parts of the album that allow a lot of freedom and intuition live and can be presented as one evolving piece. The next day, I will play a similar set at Forum Stadtpark in Graz.
The original idea for the listening session was to hear the album together like a film. For me, it works best with closed eyes, as the soundtrack to an enchanted excursion through forests and caves, with its emotional stations. That would definitely be my recommendation for listening at home :)
Close your eyes. Follow the sounds.
Sound finds a body.
The work also leads beyond the studio. At Montage Camp in Grünbach am Schneeberg, Nova found an environment where workshops and improvisation helped shape the programme. It opened space to experiment with voice and body. Next comes a first performance with Traditional Family Values in December. After that: a wood stove, code and a cat on a lap.
You work with sound and media art in Vienna. What encounter or place recently gave you a new idea for your work? What would you like to try next, perhaps together with others?
A place that really inspired me was Montage Camp in Grünbach am Schneeberg in August. It is a festival for artists working mainly in sound art and performance, who shape the programme together through workshops and improvisation. For me, it was the perfect environment to try things I had little experience with, such as working with my voice and body.
In December, I have the first performance with my new band Traditional Family Values at Sägezahn Festival. Otherwise, I will probably spend much of the winter sitting by the wood stove and programming, with a cat on my lap.
