A musical bouquet of queer mutability.

We have become too familiar with the ways interconnectivity and excess bring dissonance, confusion and void sentiments into our lives. However, a spark of mutual recognition and truth lives under the layers of chaos. That’s how PRICE (Rio de Janeiro born, Living between Marseille, Zürich and São Paulo) navigates through creation: looking for ways to merge what we conceived as separate, bringing new textures, sounds and experiences (as spectators and creatives) to light.

Across two distant locations —a dark, small town contrasting with a sunny, bright room in Sao Paulo— PRICE and NSNS’ editor S(GBA) discuss authenticity in expression, the possibilities of music beyond senses and building layers of meaning through sound.

As a producer and performer, the work of PRICE is inclined to mutability and a profound questioning about the limits and possibilities of art itself. Allowing himself to be permeated by the multiple cities he’s been traveling with his shows (to name some: Zurich, Sweden, Copenhagen, Rome, Milan, Paris and Los Angeles), PRICE’s interests take on different forms. As his official website states: “the stage of theater and performance, the club, digital space, the fashion runway, the exhibition space”. With the question of queerness (queer body and queer self) at the front, PRICE’s work inhabits these spaces with freedom and inquiry about the existential conundrums which humanity faces in the age of information.

PRICE: It is about breaking the rules, having no repetition, infinitely going further and reinventing, troubling spaces and queering structures. People often respond to my music by saying "that sounds nice," but they may not always fully understand the message. And this is part of the approach in my music: in terms of phonetics and language, I know it might be difficult to discern what I'm trying to convey, but this open phonetic space, which is free to interpret, is what I’m interested in offering to an audience.

To bring an idea, a concept to the stage or to his work, PRICE investigates and questions the implications behind it. He acknowledges the historical weight that comes with any artistic stance, all through the queer lens. This time, his investigation coincides heavily with the preoccupations of Baroque, a time period that, as PRICE shares, might shed some light on our current practice as creatives and consumers of content.

PRICE: I focus on structure and form. I came across a PDF discussing the Baroque movement in South America, which was different from the European movement and was extended or developed in its own unique form. The author attempts to bridge the gap between this movement and a place or moment where minorities, freaks, the ugly, and the unconventional could feel at home. They suggest that we are currently living in a neo Baroque era, similar to the Baroque time period due to the impact of social media and the exaggeration of visuals. Although there are some smaller details I find true and interesting, my main focus was on exploring how Baroque music was constructed and the practices surrounding castrati.

 

As S(GBA) contextualizes, “PRICE is exploring the use of smell as a tool to engage the audience in the performance rather than just being a part of a one-man show, inspired by pop mechanisms. He is leaving behind the traditional performance setup where he is invited to just sing and, instead, PRICE creates a unique experience for each performance. By incorporating smell, he believes that each person's sensory perception will create an individual experience.”

PRICE: There is something unavoidable about smell: you can't escape it. All you could do is maybe hold your breath which also relates with the threat to life itself. There is so much you can hermetically do that really twists your inner trust. You can play with security or insecurity for the spectator by troubling the atmosphere of a shared space. The idea is to challenge convention and avoid redundancy while continuously innovating. It's like exploring uncharted territory with unconventional ideas, which may disrupt traditional structures but still maintain a sense of coherence.

DISRUPTIONS IN LIVE PERFORMANCES

It may seem obvious at first, and it is often overlooked, but performance, the actual fact of standing on a stage and creating a division between spectator and artists must also be questioned as part of the whole creative experience. Precisely, S(GBA) asks PRICE about his practice, its implications and how he achieves a level of comfort in live performances while also playing with expectations and the pop’s performance tradition.

PRICE: When I perform, there is a certain level of theatricality that can feel very fake and constructed. However, I often receive feedback that my singing and voi ce have a vulnerable quality that feels true to people. It's like I'm putting myself in a private space in a public setting, which can be both challenging and moving for the audience. It's not about being naked or exposed, but rather about the tone, posture, and positivity I convey through my voice and presence. I hope to achieve a sense of not being a one-man show, and it's gratifying to see people respond by lying down and listening intently. I adore when an audience enters their own story while we share a space. That’s how my work serves as a trigger to open certain private doors for the spectators.

On stage, there is always the question of who am I: an entertainer? Perhaps a host? As a host, I find it interesting to guide and welcome the audience into my "house," creating an atmosphere that goes beyond the typical pop figure. I enjoy the difference between entertaining for the sake of ego and creating an experience that engages the listener.

 

PRICE’s upcoming self-released album, Little Too Late, catches up upon the artist’s previous record, True Sentiments, released through Latency Records. This time, PRICE explores the realm of phonetics in pop music. He believes that words don’t need to convey a specific message but they can still be instruments of sentiment. What happens if you overlap melancholic, soulful vocals with metallic, heavy percussion and a haunting ambience? What would happen if the focus shifted from lyrics to the landscape of phonetics? In his body of work, PRICE explores the resulting surprises and contradictions that derive from these heavily layered soundscapes.

 
Touching again on the notion of the neo-Baroque, PRICE describes the process behind his new release, and he emphasizes the action of rework over throwing away potential pieces. In this sense, PRICE’s work becomes circular, cyclical. Music that was hidden comes back to light and evolves as the artist does.

PRICE: The album Little Too Late is essentially a continuation of the previous record, featuring the same team as before. Unlike the first album, which was in conversation with the label’s vision, this album consists of tracks that didn't make it onto the first record. At first, there was some doubt about including these tracks, as they wondered if they were just leftovers that weren't good enough. Because from the same pool, tracks have been chosen and are released and the rest was left out.

However, they ultimately decided to go with their intuition and select the raw tracks that were important to them. The process was less restricted, allowing for more creativity in the selection and reworking of the tracks (as they felt it was right).

 

PRICE: As to the theme behind the title, we often think we don't have enough and the mentality of "more is more" seems to prevail in our current age. This led me to choose the title Little Too Late. Perhaps there is a certain pressure in this world or in the general society where we might feel that we are lagging behind or that we are doing too much. This creates a certain atmosphere that is hard to describe.

The name behind PRICE (capitalized very much intentionally) is Mathias Ringgenberg. However, Ringgenberg willingly chose to step to the side, leaving PRICE to be inhabited by its own path and significance. In that sense, PRICE builds himself, questions himself and reinvents himself. PRICE also deals with the notions of success and failure that his name might bring. And this is one of PRICE’s most remarkable points in his work ethic: the acknowledgment of failure as a queer space for possibility and resistance.

PRICE: As I became more comfortable with the concept of PRICE and its theatrical significance, especially during my master's program in performing arts, I no longer felt the need to be associated with my legal identity, Mathias Ringgenberg. I think I just got more comfortable with PRICE and the thing and it came into being in the theatrical field when I was starting and I was not sure if I wanted to be on stage. Instead, I embraced the idea of creating a utopian black box where anything is possible, and the concept of PRICE became more than just a capitalistic merch brand; it was a detached entity that could potentially evolve into a company or a group in the future.

Also, I had to consider and play with the fact that if you type “PRICE” in Google, millions of searches related to sales will pop up. It is the worst name to have. You just have Price, Sales, Super Sales, Top Price. It is always like being invisible on the web because it is too difficult, and there are more important things to sell than me. And even though I chose to always write my name in capital letters, it’s still not easy for people to find me when they search for the word "PRICE" online. However, I kind of like that it is not working, this idea of failing like Jack Halbertsam's The Queer Art of Failure, like making a really wrong decision in terms of wanting to have success as a pop artist. I want to be more of a mechanism of pop, but I don't want to be in the action of the pop industry. I am happy in the galleries, theaters and museums.

DECONSTRUCTION OF THE PERFORMATIVE SPACE

At the end, performance is a bridge for connection between artist and spectator, a space that either becomes sacred or desacralized, for an exchange between expression, reception and the fluctuations in between them. PRICE also wonders if the performative space must be reoriented towards new platforms, and how the essence of his work can stay queer and faithful in spaces that we often consider hierarchical.



PRICE: My work and my interdisciplinary praxis have allowed me to inhabit and trouble the different values and traditions that certain spaces or institutions use to validate creative expression. One example might be how I considered whether my work could potentially become a pop song, or perhaps something suitable for theater or a choreographed performance. Eventually, I also realized that it could stand on its own and be enjoyed independently. Overall, I really enjoy seeing the audience’s reactions to my work in conjugation with spaces that hold norms of conduct and reasoning of their own.

Little Too Late, available now through Bandcamp, will greet you with the eyes of PRICE looking directly at you in the album cover. His stare is not one of defiance or suspicion: more than anything, it is PRICE’s invitation for us to reflect on his musical and philosophical intent: the myriad of sounds, ideas, textures, colors (and sometimes even smell) constructing his bouquet of queer mutability.