Cadet Dev Kapoor
Role: Junior Comms Liaison, Auxiliary Wave Interpreter Status: Reassigned to long-range auroral echo study; last confirmed reply: garbled Individual Signifier: Tried to decode voices buried under white noise. Claimed one said his name.
Beneath a Broken Tape Deck
Craig Leon - Nommos
LOG 087 – Found Beneath a Broken Tape Deck, Wrapped in Newsprint
Year: 1981
Origin: USA
Condition: Near mint, faint scent of ozone
Genres: Proto-techno / Minimalism / Outer world transmissions
It arrived in a strange parcel — no note, no return address. Just a brittle inner sleeve and a half-torn page from a book on Dogon mythology tucked inside. The words “The Nommos are watching” were underlined in red ink. The record had the feel of something both futuristic and ancient — ceremonial, but pulsing.
This is Nommos, Craig Leon’s debut. Originally released in 1981 and largely ignored until reissues decades later, it’s not just a lost gem — it’s a signal. A ritual. An idea that arrived too early, destined to echo back louder with time.
Ritual Minimalism
From the opening track “Ring With Three Concentric Circles,” the sound is skeletal. Metallic pulses stagger across the stereo field. Repetition dominates — but it’s never stagnant. There’s a slow, ritualistic build, like machines trying to remember how to dance.
Leon was known for producing punk and new wave (Blondie, Suicide), but Nommos couldn’t be further from that world. It’s alien music. Inspired by Dogon legends about amphibious extraterrestrials who taught humanity the principles of sound and mathematics, Leon channels that mythology into five pieces of proto-electronic mysticism. The rhythms don’t align with club music or kosmische — they feel more like encoded messages, etched into analogue tape for future decoding.
There's something beautiful about how dry and clinical it sounds. No reverbs. No emotional cues. And yet, somehow, it’s deeply spiritual. A clean surface with unspoken depth underneath — like staring at a digital screen that hums with something ancient.
Why TPV Cares
Because Nommos predicted so much — ambient techno, minimalism, IDM — without belonging to any of it. It’s not “retro.” It doesn’t evoke the past or future. It just is. A slow pulse that doesn’t care whether you dance or drift.
At TPV, we love records that arrive from somewhere else. Not just geographically — Nommos isn’t of this Earth. It’s proof that some records aren’t made for a particular scene or time. They’re made for listeners who stumble upon them when they’re ready.
Filed under: alien minimalism / techno’s missing link / pre-millennium signal music
Recommended use: foggy train stations / alien museum installations / rituals no one remembers
TPV recommends Nommos by Craig Leon. Not music. A message.
