Inside Amplifest: André Coelho (Amplifest designer/ Terminal Tower)

André Coelho – the tireless designer behind Amplifest’s artwork – teamed up with writer Manuel João Neto to bring the graphic novel Terminal Tower to life. Out now via underground cult publishers Chili Com Carne, Terminal Tower tells the tale of a lone man trapped and isolated on the top a tower; focusing on the character’s delirium and paranoia, the book references the decadent imagery present in the works of Enki Bilal and J.G. Ballard, and also in Industrial music – after all, both authors also collaborate on the Portuguese band Sektor 304. The illustrations found in Terminal Tower will be exhibited in Hard Club’s Mainfloor during the Amplifest weekend and will remain there until the end of October. Meanwhile, we had a chat with him:

What do you expect of the Amplifest audience?
I hope to find (and I’m sure I will) interested people, willing to see, hear and know more about everything that goes on and beyond the physical and mental landscapes of Terminal Tower.

We like surprises, but what can we expect from your exhibition?
Eventually you will find a slightly different style and approach from what you are used to see in my posters, so I hope the surprise can take shape on the eye of beholder.

What band do you really want to see at Amplifest?
U R F(ucking) A U S T ! Conan! And I’m obviously curious to check Wovenhand and Swans!

If you had to pick a band or a musician of this Amplifest edition to collaborate with who would it be?
Well, I guess I could work with them all! Doing graphics for every single one of them!

What records have you been listening to lately?
I’ve been hearing Last Dominion Lost’s “Towers of Silence”, Puce Mary “The Great Panic”, S.T.A.B. Electronics “Instruments for Operatin Women”, Aluk Todolo “Occult Rock”, Skin Chamber “Wound”, Shift / Hal Hutchinson “Full Weight of the Opposition”, Muslimgauze “Gun Aramaic”, and I recently dug out from my lost boxes two Cdrs by this Russian Industrial project called YAO 91404 D. Really raw field recordings with quite simple mixing and very little processing. Like a coal age Vivenza! Between these records, I’ve been playing Strom.ec, one of the best and yet most underrated projects in the industrial/power electronics scene.

What books have you been reading and what movies have you been watching lately that you want to recommend?
The last I books I read were “Europe Central” by William T. Vollmann and “Exterminate All the Brutes” by Sven Lindqvist and I absolutly recommend them both! Vollmann is a terrific author and you all should check on his work! I’ve been revisiting some of my comic book classics, such as Guido Crepax, Battaglia, Barron Storey and one of my all time favorites “The Myths of Cthullu” by Alberto Breccia, along with other work by him.
I haven’t been very focused on movies lately, but from the few I actually watched or rewatched over the last couple of months I have to name “The Passenger” by Antonioni (watched for the millionth time) and “Bunker Palace Hotel” by Enki Bilal.