Originally from Charlotte, NC, Joshua Catenazzo exhibits and performs under the name Guumaqu. The Brooklyn based visual sound artist and improvisor creates multi-sensory experiences through video and graphic art. His work challenges perspective, love and curiosity—finding a sensory line between the silly and the existential through rhythm and color. He is part of the duo Amaquu alongside artist Aman and performs improvised electronic music with Pon0p0no under the name JJAGUNOMAQU.

I (Ryder) met Josh in my freshman fall semester at Eugene Lang, studying contemporary music and later booked him and Jonah to perform as JJAGUNOMAQU at my first show I ever produced. That show took place in the basement of a Chinese restaurant and was a silly, chaotic nightmare, but one that I hold dear in my heart. Over our time of collaboration and friendship, Josh has acted as a mentor and a guide to me in the world of experimental music. The following is a conversation between myself and my friend.

RM

Define the concept of comedy and how it pertains to your work.

JC

I would say the concept of comedy goes pretty deep, honestly. It can get super out-there and freaky and heady. I guess comedy is just a way of laughing at life… and approaching life with positivity. Finding comedy in mundane things and very strange things is just kind of what I like to do. I guess it really came from pain, you know? Like when I was going through chemo treatment. The way that I got out of that was just some sort of delusion of, like, life is positive, and I can laugh at it. So, that's kind of how I approach my music through comedy.

RM

How does it appear sonically?

JC

That's a good question. I would say it appears in breaking expectations. Setting something up and breaking that form consistently. I feel like there's not much music that's funny, that's also so serious. Like, I can make you laugh, but you're also like, “damn, that was real as fuck.”

RM

Yeah, I love that about this project… When did it all kind of come together? When did you start working on this project?

JC

I guess it started last year when I did the comedy mix tape. I called Colin up one day, and I was just talking shit on some silly shit, and I was like, “we should make an album called Comedy this weekend.” And he was like, “okay, like, you should do that.” And I was like, oh, this is really funny. Why am I so drawn to this idea that was so spontaneous and silly? And around that time, I was working on making a sample sound pack and I called it “the comedy drum kit.” Basically, the second I started using it as a drum kit, in the way I would use other people's drum kits, a completely new sound emerged to me. That sound, I called Comedy. I made about an hour-long project of it. Then, with this new project, I sort of rethought the process of it and took more influence from improvised music. The other beats were very much, like, noisy sort-of rap influenced beats, but still very improvised. I would make them very fast and just kind of drag shit

all over the place, throwing it on top of each other, like to give a sense of ridiculousness. But, with the new projects, I've been trying to sort of strip it back, but also get deeper into the philosophical aspect of comedy.

RM

What do you think is so special / what drives you towards minimalism?

JC

I think minimalism is kind of like maximalism in the way that comedy is very literal and also metaphorical. It's very funny yet serious. There's these opposites and contradictions that I find very interesting to play with. I don't necessarily think that I make music that's super minimalist, but I am inspired by a lot of minimalists. What draws me to it is that it's so empty, you know? It becomes very personal at that point because you kind of fill in the blanks.

RM

Yeah, it makes you pay attention.

JC

Exactly. Minimalism is the shit.

RM

Hell yeah. How did your experience going through chemo and your fight with cancer affect your approach to an artistic practice?

JC

I think it helped me realize that music and art are very important to me. Even throughout treatment, music is what would let me feel like I escaped in a way, or more so, remained present with what was going on and felt peace within the present. Especially once I completed the project that I made during that time. It made me realize that this is really a diary. It's really just nice to look back on my experience through sound. I really didn't take many pictures, I didn't have much of anything except the music I made from that era, and that comes from the joy of it. Some of that stuff is hard to listen to. It's more healing than other ways of documenting that era to me.

RM

Yeah, I just imagine that it's such a pivotal moment and obviously not in just your music, but in your life. Knowing how much I can look back on something and know exactly where I was at this point in my life when I made this. It's wild to imagine. I can't even imagine it, but it's really powerful.

JC

At the end of the day, music for me is like that's a practice of loving yourself and loving the world and how you participate within it. I think that being able to do that at dark times is very comforting. It makes me feel at peace with stuff.

RM

Are you still sound designing a lot of your own sounds and drums?

JC

Yeah, I've been getting deeper into sound design. It's so big for me because textures and creating your own world as an electronic musician is everything. Being able to have so much control over the material, feeling and texture of your sound is so important. Picking stuff out, like samples, is awesome. Messing with samples is awesome but, I feel like sound design allows you to just get a little deeper with it.

RM

Why are you sticking to Bandcamp and Nina and staying off of streaming?

JC

Yeah, fuck streaming. I think they're evil companies that don't treat artists right. I don't think that my music sounds very good on streaming anyways. I feel like Bandcamp and Nina and, um, I also want to get on… I think it's called Subvert. We don't need to be on streaming anymore because they fucking treat artists wrong and they're the lead of all the evil shit in the music industry. I don't think that Guuumaqu music is particularly profitable on streaming anyways so I might as well not be on it. When you listen to music on streaming it doesn't really encourage you to listen to it in a way that's very intentional.

RM

I think the playlist promotes passive listening. I've tried to make it very clear for a lot of the stuff that I've been making recently. These are not songs that are meant to be put on a playlist.

JC

Yeah, they're not playlist songs. I make music with other artists that I think work in that format. Respect to that but, I don't think it's for my solo stuff. at least not right now.

You can listen to the full, uncut interview here:

Q&A - Guuumaqu

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Q&A - Guuumaqu