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Brazilian-born, Brighton-based producer Gil OS released “Mono Substance” as Amorphous on 7 August 2026 through Semantics Productions. In this Amorphous interview for Side-Line Magazine, Gil OS speaks with Karo Kratochwil about the album’s core question, where the individual ends and the system begins, the role of Nora Avant’s voice across four tracks, bringing berimbau and alfaia into “Maracatu”, and testing an idea against the body before trusting it on record.

Mono Substance begins with a philosophical problem, but Gil OS does not treat philosophy as something to paste over electronic music after the machinery has already been assembled. The interesting part is what happens when an abstract question, where the individual ends, whether separation is ever complete, how systems become internalised, has to survive bass pressure, repetition and a moving body. That line has been developing through Amorphous for some time. “Skepticism” looked outward at technology and the structures shaping human behaviour; “Devour” moved closer to consumption, obedience and the erosion of individual autonomy. On “Mono Substance”, Gil pushes underneath both questions and starts interfering with the boundary itself. If the individual and the system continuously shape one another, how useful is the distinction between them in the first place?

Musically, however, “Mono Substance” is anything but an exercise in abstraction. Gil’s earlier history in chill out, freestyle electronics and psytrance remains somewhere inside his understanding of repetition and momentum, while Amorphous has developed a harder electro/EBM language of its own. Nora Avant’s voice enters the machinery on four tracks, while “Ancestors” and particularly “Maracatu” open the rhythmic vocabulary toward ancestry, ritual and collective physical experience. On the latter, Gil brings his Brazilian roots directly into the album through berimbau and alfaia, setting hand-played percussion against programmed electronics.

Kratochwil had already seen how physical this music becomes when Gil performs it at Fourscher Festival. That experience became one of the starting points for the conversation that follows: control and surrender, melody as seduction, rhythm as communication, Nora Avant as another consciousness within the record, and why an idea that works perfectly in theory may still fail the moment the body refuses to believe it.

Amorphous interview

Karo: When I reviewed “Skepticism”, I was interested in the way you examined systems, technology and the structures that begin shaping the people who created them. “Devour” moved further into consumption, obedience and the erosion of self. On “Mono Substance”, the question seems to move underneath both of those subjects: where does the individual actually end and the system begin? Was that conceptual shift deliberate?

Gil: Yes, I think that shift was deliberate, although it happened quite naturally through the work. With Skepticism, I looked outward at systems and technology, and with Devour, I became more interested in what those systems do to us through consumption and obedience. Mono Substance felt like the next step: turning the question inward and asking how much of what we think of as the self is actually our own. The line between the individual and the system becomes increasingly difficult to locate. At a certain point, the system isn’t just something outside us that we participate in, it becomes part of how we think, behave and understand ourselves. That tension is really at the centre of the record.

Karo: The title “Mono Substance” immediately invokes the philosophical problem of whether apparently separate things are ultimately expressions of one underlying reality. What interested you in that idea musically?

Gil: Musically, I was interested in the idea that very different things can emerge from the same underlying material. I wanted the record to explore that without trying to literally illustrate a philosophical idea. Rhythm, texture and sound became different ways of working with the same substance, repeating, mutating and breaking apart until something familiar starts to feel completely different. There’s also a tension in that: if everything comes from the same source, where does difference actually begin? Rather than adding a philosophical concept onto the music, I wanted the concept to exist within the way the sounds behave, develop and relate to each other.

Karo: There is a fascinating contradiction between the album’s concept and its construction. Philosophically, the record questions separation, while musically your production is extremely precise, with sounds carefully differentiated and positioned. Did you ever think about the production itself as a way of exploring the difference between distinction and genuine separation?

Gil: Yes, absolutely. Precision can create the impression that everything is clearly separated, but the more closely you listen, the more those boundaries start to blur. Sounds can occupy their own space while still being completely dependent on everything around them. Distinction doesn’t necessarily mean separation. You can isolate a sound, a rhythm or a texture, but it still exists within a larger system and is shaped by its relationship to everything else. In that sense, the precision of the production actually reinforces the central idea of the record rather than contradicting it.

Karo: Before the current Amorphous sound, you had already travelled through very different electronic territories under Gil Mahadeva and Mukunga Umbura, including chill out, freestyle electronics and psytrance. How much of “Mono Substance” comes from allowing those older parts of your musical identity back into Amorphous rather than trying to maintain a strict electro or EBM vocabulary?

Gil: I think those earlier projects are still present in the music, even if they’re not always obvious on the surface. I’ve always been interested in repetition, trance and the physical effect of rhythm, so those elements naturally found their way into Mono Substance. I wasn’t trying to return to those styles specifically, but I also didn’t want to exclude parts of my musical history just to maintain a strict Amorphous vocabulary. The older electronic work gave me a different understanding of movement and repetition. It’s less about genre and more about what certain sounds and rhythms can do to the body and the mind.

Karo: One thing I have consistently liked about your work is that the intellectual element never becomes an excuse for the music to stop being physical. Do you consciously test an idea against the body, almost asking whether a concept still works once it has to survive a dance floor, bass pressure and repetition?

Gil: Yes, definitely. For me, an idea ultimately has to work physically as well as intellectually. I can be interested in a concept, but if it doesn’t translate into rhythm, tension, movement or some kind of bodily response, then it probably doesn’t belong in the music. The dance floor is a useful test because repetition strips away a lot of the intellectual framing. You experience the sound first, and only later might you think about what it means. The body is almost the final reality check for the idea.

Karo: Across the album, questions of control appear in several forms: political power, technological systems, consumption, conditioning and even control over one’s own perception. Yet musically there is also a strong tension between very disciplined programming and moments that feel more fluid, hypnotic or ritualistic. How much of that tension between control and surrender is built deliberately into the sound?

Gil: Very deliberately. Control and surrender are two sides of the same process, especially in electronic music. Programming gives you an incredible level of control over rhythm, repetition and detail, but once those elements are repeated and layered, they can start to produce something that feels almost autonomous. There are moments where everything is tightly controlled and mechanical, and others where the repetition becomes hypnotic and you almost stop listening analytically and simply follow it. Surrender isn’t necessarily the opposite of control, sometimes it is what control eventually produces.

Karo: Your music has become darker and more confrontational over time, but melody has never disappeared. Is melody important to you as a counterweight to aggression, or perhaps as something more dangerous, a seductive surface through which uncomfortable ideas can enter more easily?

Gil: I think melody can do both. It can be a counterweight to aggression, but it can also make something much more unsettling because it gives the listener a way in. A melodic element can feel familiar or even beautiful while the material around it is much darker, and that contrast can make the underlying idea hit harder. If a difficult or uncomfortable idea arrives through something seductive, you may engage with it before you’ve had the chance to put up a defence.

Karo: There is the hard electro and EBM impact I already associate with Amorphous, but also trance logic, more organic movement and, in places such as “Ancestors” and “Maracatu,” something communal or ritualistic. Is rhythm becoming a larger conceptual language for you, rather than simply the engine underneath the songs?

Gil: Yes, I think so. Rhythm has always been central to the music, but on Mono Substance I became more interested in rhythm as a way of communicating rather than simply driving the track. With tracks like “Ancestors” and especially “Maracatu,” I was interested in that more collective aspect of rhythm: the idea that rhythm can connect people physically and almost temporarily dissolve the sense of the individual. Maracatu comes from the northeast of Brazil, particularly Pernambuco, and carries a strong Afro-Brazilian cultural identity, combining percussion, dance, ritual and community. I played the berimbau and the alfaia, the large bass drum that gives Maracatu much of its deep, powerful pulse, and then had to find a way of mixing and producing those organic instruments alongside the electronic elements. I wasn’t trying to reproduce Maracatu traditionally, but to let something from my own cultural background enter the language of Amorphous.

Karo: Nora Avant appears on four tracks. On an album concerned with unstable boundaries and the idea that apparently separate voices may belong to the same underlying continuum, how did you think about bringing another voice into the record?

Gil: Nora’s presence felt like much more than simply adding another voice. I think she became another consciousness within the record. Her voice has a very particular emotional and psychological quality, and that allowed the music to move into spaces I couldn’t reach through the production alone. At times she feels like a contrast to the machinery and repetition, and at other times she feels completely absorbed into it. I wanted her voice to become part of the same structure and, in a way, blur the boundary between the human and the system.

Karo: I saw you live at Fourscher Festival, and what stayed with me was how little distance there was between the electronic construction and your physical performance. While making “Mono Substance”, were you already thinking about what these tracks would require from you physically when performed live?

Gil: Yes, definitely. I don’t want the live show to feel like a reproduction of the record; it needs to have its own physical energy and sense of movement. The electronic elements can be very precise, but the performance introduces something human and unpredictable into that structure. For me, the ideal is that you don’t really perceive a separation between the electronic construction and the person performing it.

Karo: Amorphous itself is a name that implies unstable form. Do you recognise one continuous line running through “Skepticism”, “Devour” and “Mono Substance”, even if you did not necessarily plan it from the beginning?

Gil: Yes, I can see a continuous line running through it, even though I definitely didn’t plan the whole journey from the beginning. With Skepticism, I was looking at systems and the way they shape us. Devour moved closer to the individual and the way those systems can become internalised through consumption and conditioning. With Mono Substance, the question has become more fundamental: if everything is interconnected, can we really talk about the individual as something completely separate? The name Amorphous fits that process quite well, not because the music has no form, but because the form is always capable of changing.

Karo: If boundaries disappear, connection becomes possible, but so do loss of autonomy, contamination and absorption into larger systems. Do you personally experience the idea of “one substance” as liberating, disturbing, or as a contradiction you deliberately wanted to leave unresolved?

Gil: I think it’s both liberating and disturbing, and that contradiction is exactly what interested me. The idea that everything is connected can be comforting because it suggests that nothing exists completely alone. But if there is no real separation, then individuality and autonomy become much more complicated. I didn’t want to resolve that tension on the album. Mono Substance isn’t really arguing that unity is good or bad; it’s asking what happens to the idea of the self if we take that unity seriously.

Karo: What happens now that “Mono Substance” is out? Are you planning live dates or a broader run of shows around the album?

Gil: The first two shows were actually in Brazil, in São Paulo, which was very special to me. The CD was also sold there before it was available elsewhere and before the official release, so being able to present the album first in my own country felt like a huge bonus. I definitely want to continue bringing the album into a live setting. The challenge at the moment is finding organizers in Europe who are interested in having Amorphous perform live. I’ve approached a few people, but some haven’t responded, so I’m still trying to figure out how to make the live side more consistent and sustainable. The live version is also an opportunity to develop the more hypnotic and ritualistic side of the album. I want the set to feel physical, immersive and capable of changing in the moment.

About Amorphous

Amorphous is the solo project of Gil OS, a Brazilian-born electronic producer active since the early 1990s. Gil OS first made his name as the mastermind of Morgue Mechanism, one of the pioneering industrial and EBM acts in South America, released through the German label Off Beat. He later relocated to the United Kingdom, settling in Brighton, and worked under further monikers including Gil Mahadeva and Mukunga Umbura across chill out, freestyle electronics and psytrance before consolidating his electro-industrial work under the Amorphous name.

Amorphous released the album “Shapeshifting” in 2016, followed by the “Behaviourism” EP, “Moth Metaphor” (2020) and “Stigmergy”. Side-Line has covered the project twice before through Karolina Kratochwil’s ‘Click Interview’ series, first in 2017 and again in 2020. The album “Skepticism” followed on Semantics Productions in 2024, previewed through the single “Algorithm“.

On 19 June 2026, Amorphous released the single “Devour” featuring Nora Avant on main and backing vocals, written, produced, mixed and mastered by Gil OS. The track introduced the concerns of the forthcoming album in a club-oriented format. “Mono Substance” followed on 7 August 2026 through Semantics Productions, a ten-track album, Axiom, Devour, Masquerade, Blinding Gold, Domino Effect, Kingdom Fall, Ancestors, Unconditioned, Through The Noise and Maracatu, with Nora Avant providing backing vocals on “Devour”, “Blinding Gold”, “Kingdom Fall” and “Ancestors”, and artwork by Anastase Kyriakos. This interview follows Gil OS’ live performance at Fourscher Festival and marks Amorphous’ first Side-Line feature since the “Skepticism” campaign.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

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