Founded in early 2009, The Proxemics are an autonomous music project with a revolving cast of musicians led by lynch pin and frontman Alex Neville (The brilliant Dullards, A. Barnhouse, Audible Whispering 1/2 Quartet). They are currently working as a quartet featuring Neville (Guitar, Mandolin, Bass, Samples, Vocals), Yozo Suzuki (Guitar), Roland Ostheim (Bass) and Michael Smith (Drums) and reside on the High Mayhem label.
The Proxemics are a stripped down assembly, sometimes appearing as a garage-based, dirty wall of sound, sometimes as deconstructed balladeers offering you their hearts on their sleeves. Neville unites crunchy, angular alt-rock with a singer-songwriter sensibility while never letting go of his experimental roots. Mimicking the definition of their moniker, The Proxemics are at times both distant and intimate, treating their audience to an emotional tug-of-war. The songs appear effortless on the surface, but upon deeper investigation they become a complex system of asymmetrical forms with sonic threads and noise, weaving songs into a larger, continuous theme.
The shifting members of The Proxemics are all long-time members of the High Mayhem Emerging Arts Collective, also based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, which has helped shape the City Different’s unique underground scene for the last ten years.