“Have you ever been involved in, or suspected of being involved in, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide?” asks an automated voice, over warped tones and hissing atmospherics. It’s a recorded sample from one of many fruitless phone calls to government departments the band Nihiloxica have made, chasing visas or potentially lost passports that have been held on to for months on end.
After enduring endless issues with UK visas and passports, Nihiloxica – whose members are based in Uganda, Britain and the Netherlands – have funnelled all their frustration into new album Source of Denial. “We wanted to create the sense of being in the endless, bureaucratic hell of attempting to travel to a foreign country that deems itself superior to where you’re from,” they announced ahead of its release.
In 2022, the constant hurdles the band face resulted in them having to cancel their UK tour. Ahead of a string of summer dates this year they found themselves in a similar situation. Just four days before they were due to fly, some members were still without passports because of requirements to hand them over when applying for visas. “I was emailing and calling every week,” says percussionist and producer Jacob Maskell-Key. “But you get met with these no-response emails where you’re not in a thread with a real person.”
The passport landed with two days to spare. “Praise God,” says bass drum player Henry Isabirye. “But it really bugged me because I was not sure whether I would be able to work. I have a family to support, so if I’m denied or my passport gets lost that is a big problem.”
Comprising Isabirye, Maskell-Key, Henry Kasoma, Jamiru Mwange and Peter Jones, the band were founded when Maskell-Key, who performs as Spooky-J, travelled to Kampala for a residency at Nyege Nyege, a pioneering label and festival that has been celebrating Uganda’s electronic and experimental music scene since 2013. There he collaborated with Isabirye, Kasoma and Mwange, then part of the drum outfit Nilotika Cultural Ensemble. Maskell-Key returned the following year with Jones, thinking his “techno and metal-influenced droney synth style would suit the music”, and Nihiloxica was born.
When the band finally did all land in the UK this year, they did so with a bang. At Cheshire’s Bluedot festival in July, the band offered up a thrilling and unique concoction, interspersing the traditional drums of Buganda (largest of the historical kingdoms of Uganda) – such as the embuutu and engalabi – with a drum kit and live electronics. The result is a polyrhythmic assault, running the gamut from industrial techno to doom metal. The band have called their sound “traditional techno”, which Jones insists was a joke. “But it kind of sums it up in a funny way. I don’t want to be that person that says: ‘You can’t define our sound,’ but … you can’t.”
“[Maskell-Key and Jones] brought in music I hadn’t been exposed to,” says Isabirye. “Back here, people don’t even understand the kind of music we play. It’s too strange. I don’t blame them, but they need to know this kind of music because playing those drums along with those other instruments … man, it is amazing to feel that live.”
While previous album Kaloli was recorded “in a nice studio with expensive microphones”, says Maskell-Key, for Source of Denial “we were like, all right, let’s just embrace this lo-fi recording in Kampala and make it sound more aggressive, distorted and punchy.”
But that more aggressive, distorted and punchy sound is also a product of background circumstance. “The situation [with visas] has obviously fuelled things,” says Jones. “Isa [Henry Isabirye] was super fucking mad when his passport was in limbo. So while our energy as a band is really intense and angry regardless, we channelled that as well.”
The band are visibly irate when discussing the situation. “When we try to go to Uganda … well, it’s not trying, we just go,” says Jones. “You flip it to Ugandans trying to go to England and why should it be so much harder for these people? We can get to Europe quite reliably now but the UK is still the hardest to penetrate. I think it’s made to be so difficult, time consuming and painful that you just avoid doing it.”
The band are not alone in their struggles as international performers. Fielding Hope, the promoter for London venue Cafe Oto, which hosts a number of global artists, summed up the situation in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter): “Another day, another visa rejection for an African artist coming to the UK. This shit never gets any better. Really, really fucking horrible, embarrassing and infuriating. And no it’s not a ‘Brexit’ issue, it’s been going on way before that.”
The application form for a visa is long, detailed and complicated, requiring a sponsor, along with robust personal and professional financial information. Because they are issued by external service providers, there’s often not much in the way of direct assistance and even if all of this is completed successfully, the response still may be a no with no recourse for appeal.
A recent article by Pan African Magazine reported that in 2022, only 58% of creative worker visa requests were granted to Ghanaians who applied for them, with Congo, Uganda and Nigeria all having an acceptance rate below 70%. When the reporter asked about the percentage of visa requests granted to African musicians, the UK Home Office was unable to provide data but in a statement said: “All visa applications are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with the immigration rules.”
As for Nihiloxica, “we just keep moving and keep playing,” says Isabirye. “All my life I’ve wanted to be on stage. So I just want to play shows.”
“There’s always gonna be struggles but you just have to face it,” adds Maskell-Key. “If you’re like: ‘Ah it’s too hard, I’m giving up,’ then you’re giving in to the system. With this album we’re projecting a problem that we shouldn’t have to be going through. But it doesn’t mean that we’re going to stop.”
Source of Denial is out now.
