Music
Piero Umiliani, a century after his birth: a story that still lives on.
t-mag
17.07.26
IN CONVERSATION WITH: Noémi Büchi
words: Tatiana Tardio
14.04
In "Exuvie”Noémi Büchi constructs a musical landscape that moves between memory, body, and transformation. The title itself, which evokes the skin shed after a shedding, becomes a key to understanding a work that speaks not of sharp ruptures, but of subtle continuities, stratifications, and slow metamorphoses. Between personal archives and collective imaginations, the Swiss composer explores sound as living matter: something that preserves, deforms, and regenerates. The result is an album that isn't simply listened to, but traversed: a space where the time of the body and that of the mind overlap, allowing traces, residues, and new forms to emerge.
"Exuvie" refers to what remains after a transformation—a skin that is shed. How did this idea guide the album's genesis and the construction of its imagery?
Transformation was the album's starting point, not only thematically but also musically. When I compose, I always work with a personal musical archive: fragments, gestures, habits, and memories accumulated over time. This archive inevitably influences the way ideas emerge. In this sense, transformation occurs through reuse, erosion, and recontextualization: materials from the past are not erased, but reshaped into something new.
This process also mirrors the functioning of identity. The present is always informed by what we've already experienced, heard, or felt. We evolve by shedding layers, but leaving traces behind. I think of the self as an archive, a book composed of many pages. Every day a new blank page opens, but it's never completely separated from the previous ones. The imagery of "Exuvie” It arises precisely from this tension between continuity and change: what we leave behind, what we take with us, and the fact that transformation is never a clean break, but a continuous process.
Photographer Aria Ruffini
Styling Gianluca Gagliardi @t-mag
Makeup & Nails Lisa Lionello
Hair Luca Nolasco @lit_milano
Styling Assistant Ornella Maglione
Press & Production Alice Suppa
On the album, the body appears as a place of slower time than the mind, capable of retaining and remembering. How did you translate this difference in pace into the album's musical structures?
I often work with long, simple, and repetitive rhythmic structures that evolve slowly. They remain in motion without urgency, and this seemed close to the way the body retains memory over time.
At the same time, I don't try to translate concepts too literally into music. The relationship is more symbolic than direct. For me, music creates a temporal space or atmosphere, rather than a precise illustration of the idea. The two levels can coexist without being rigidly superimposed.
"Exuvie" weaves together a wide range of musical memories—from video game and anime soundtracks to hip hop and late Romanticism. How do you navigate the boundary between personal and cultural memory without one overriding the other?
I can't really separate personal memory from cultural memory. What we perceive as taste or personal memory is already shaped by cultural contexts, references, and shared histories. When I compose, these layers intertwine naturally, not as references or stylistic cues, but as materials absorbed over time.
Rather than consciously balancing them, I let them coexist. My interest isn't in representing specific references, but in observing how these memories have been internalized and transformed into a personal musical language.
The references that run through "Exuvie"—visual, musical, corporeal, emotional—emerge as layers rather than explicit quotations. What were the most recurring references during the writing process, and how did you make them emerge naturally?
The most recurring reference was the concept of recycling: working with a musical legacy or personal archive rather than trying to invent something completely new. I'm interested in the illusion of novelty and the fact that what we perceive as "new" is often a transformation of existing materials.
Rather than consciously inserting references, I focus on processes that allow these layers to emerge on their own. By reworking, filtering, and transforming familiar materials, references emerge indirectly, as traces rather than explicit quotations.
The project is characterized by a strong visual dimension, also influenced by Francis Bacon's distorted bodies. Do you think of your music as a space to be traversed rather than a linear narrative? What role does silence play in this space?
Yes, absolutely. I think of music as a space rather than a linear narrative. It's not about telling a story, but about form, presence, and transformation over time.
What fascinates me about Francis Bacon's work is his ability to recontextualize the human body, to rematerialize it by deforming and displacing it, while still leaving traces of what it was, of its history. This approach resonates greatly with my own work: sounds are reused, deformed, and placed in new contexts without erasing their past.
Silence plays a vital role in this space. It functions as a structural and rhythmic element that shapes form, tension, and perception, allowing the material to appear and disappear.
Is there a track on "Exuvie" whose title feels particularly close to your heart right now? How did that name come about, and what image or transformation does it convey?
When I finish a work, I usually feel quite detached from it. Sometimes for months, sometimes for years. This distance is important to me. Once completed, the music no longer belongs to an emotional state or a specific moment: it becomes autonomous.
I prefer to leave it open, so that listeners can project their own images and memories onto the music.
From a production standpoint, what instruments and technologies—analog, digital, orchestral, or electroacoustic—were central to the writing and recording of the album, and how did they influence the final result?
The core of the album is based on recorded material, primarily drums and vocals, which I then extensively process and resynthesize. Rather than starting with defined instruments, I work with sound as raw material, which can be stretched, fragmented, and transformed.
After completing “Exuvie,” do you feel this album represents a skin you’ve already shed or one you’re still inhabiting?
Already abandoned. Once completed, the album became part of my past. A necessary stage of transformation, but not something I'm still inhabiting. For me, finishing a work means letting it go, allowing new processes to begin.
