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Gunslingers interview with GR

April 28, 2014

Gunslingers interview with GR

Born of madness, the self-appointed guardians of chaos, Gunslingers are a band as comfortable in the mind-bending psychedelic noise, feedback and distortion that they create as they are in the supple rhythms of a tasty riff, lurching and exploding forward into an unknown darkness.


Noise rock is a pretty heavily growing genre right now, but there aren’t many people capable of rendering musical madness in the fashion that Gunslingers are. For a decade or more GR and his rowdy band of massacre rock deviant inquisitors have been cooking up their sinister brew of distortion dosed noise and psychosis, undeniably catchy rhythms lurking like a Punji pit in the dense sounds of the distorted guitar twanging and crackling in the underbelly of a monstrous rhythm section comprised of drums that sound like a harras of horses on the loose, and a bass player who’s got the sonic skills to scramble your brain like an egg in a frying pan from the grooves of an LP. Their latest, and possibly most unhinged and tasty, musical offering is 2013’s Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors, a single-sided slab of sickness comprised of two tracks taking the listener further down the rabbit hole that their earlier albums, No More Invention and Manifest Zero both for the awesome World In Sound Records opened, Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors proves that while it may have been a little while since we last heard from them, Gunslingers aren’t coming up short when it comes to showing that they still have a lot left to do and say. Lead guitarist GR has been around on the killer French psych scene for a long while now and seems to be a lot of the brains, blood and brawn behind the Gunslingers and with several solo albums and other projects going on simultaneously, I am absolutely stoked that he was able to take time out of his extremely busy schedule to fill our lucky readers in on the details about Gunslingers balls-to-the-walls psychedelic sonic attack. Beware dangerous riffs lurk ahead though, so watch your hands and feet, and enjoy the ride! I present the massacre rock deviant inquisitors themselves, I give you Gunslingers…

GR (2007)

Can you talk a little bit about how Gunslingers came to be? How did you all meet and when was that? What led to the formation of Gunslingers?

This was around 2003/2004 that we all met up. Though being firstly involved in our respective bands of that time, we then went on a more appropriately conducive level to “joining forces & conceiving together”.

Antoine, who came to be afterwards Gunslingers’ drummer, joined me on a band I had just founded… some agitated free-form only 4-piece indulged in frontal automatic execution; but it only lasted about one year— the band suffered from weird decimation as one member went pretty over the edge on his saxophone mouthpiece, being taken very-psychically-captive by self-mutilating dreadful feedback… and while another member opened a bar to relieve his wistful bladder.

So Antoine & I survived this and found ourselves in the position of founding a new band in 2005. We were thus firstly a guitar/voice, drums duo, started to work around some material I had previously primed for guitar solo and then made it evolve together for the purpose of the band.

I remember first show was offered to us whereas we only had 3 songs but which were more chiefly 3 improvised sessions around 3 infinitely extensive hysterico-saturnine themes; the concert turned to be a real catharsis exercise that led us to play twice the same set in a row, the second one being the re-improvised re-visitation of the first one though… so much so that nobody could identify that this was the same songs’ other hand, so was it all about “mise en abyme” that we had chosen the alias name of Vathek specially for the occasion (after William Beckford’s roman noir whose both of us were regular admirers, like all Great roman noir authors in general that we were massively reading: Maturin, M. G. Lewis, Brockden Brown, Walpole, Hoffmann etc etc).

Then Matthieu, with whom we also had figured about founding a new band all together, joined us as the bassist a couple of weeks later— that’s the way the path finally opened for Gunslingers’ lineup…

Who all is in Gunslingers?

Until now it’s been: GR (Guitar/vocals), Antoine Hadjioannou (Drums), Matthieu Canaguier (Bass).

What does the name Gunslingers mean or refer to? Who came up with it and how did you go about choosing it?

Well it refers to nothing but what suddenly crossed my mind and which my tongue betrayed with the approval of everybody—, a classic name for an obscure outsider band reclaiming the content of “the classic”. We shot the so known generic content down and put ourselves as the new fuckin’ thing behind it…You will recall that the full name in its complete extension is Gunslingers (Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors). Most people may half-name it for practical utility (myself included) and it’s fine but as large as the name is it should be meant to fit into aesthetics requirements.

M.R.D.I came to my mind as an extension (subliminal yet heavy) not too long after Gunslingers, and is pure surrealistic wit of a gesticulation; but it’s like a sign of sympathy and a recognition, yeah man, for the listeners’ taste when not abused by prejudice-mongers or STEREOtypes. Being the plaything of one’s own untamed feelings is much more honorable a thing.

NB: That’s too remarkable not to be mentioned that almost all distributors handling our records do mess up our full name with its extension; some even stipulated the issue was big enough since our band name couldn’t fit in the space allocated on their website… and well, I then naturally (& sarcastically!) suggested these guys to close their business. And if we got to appear on a flyer (for a show or whatever) we were very possibly told that the paper couldn’t expand to our complete legible name etc.

So to speak, I’ve now reached the point where I figure our name just means “that does not fit with”.

There’s a lot of things that I love about music but describing and labeling it. How would you describe Gunslingers’ sound to our readers who might not have heard you before?

Melmoth’s laugh in extensible spatialization depending upon your more-or-less-critical situation. So they’ve got to know who is Melmoth.

Where did you grow up? How would you describe the local music scene there? Did it have much of an approach on you growing up?

I grew up in Grenoble, our metaphorical San Pedro Ville. For sure the local music scene certainly had an approach on my curiosity above all, having been a kid who unceasingly enjoyed going & seeing tons of concerts; and even after seeing a bad show always going to another one, like if you desperately expected that a miracle of taste would happen next; then the stock pile (& spirit) is known and your patience is tried as generations come & go (locals, eat your fucking babies!).— It’s made me well informed of the stuff I’ve had nothing to do with. Once moving beyond curiosity, you find absolutely no interest at all in the matter. Though mediocrity is a fine argument per se which largely enlightens he who recognizes it as such and does not desire it. But the deal is freeing yourself of the things that are a headache to you and simultaneously building up your own musical taste & identity regardless of any geographical point; detours are often necessary in our quest.

Where are you located at these days? Do you feel like Gunslingers was heavily impacted by the local music scene where you’re at now? Do you think you could have done and been what you have and are anywhere or did the local scene play a large part in sculpting the sound and ideology of the band?

I actually still live in San Pedro Ville, Antoine & Matthieu moved to Paris. — Gunslingers has never been needed to feel concerned about the nauseous package the local scene has had to transfer (before & now and wherever we might live in France). Also, local promoters & venues feed the ones (99%) who best maintain their taste market’s hierarchies; a very tiny chance is given to the unexpected. Gunslingers played not much more than 3 gigs in France since 2008. So, what do you think?

How would you describe the local scene where you’re at? Are you very involved in local music scene? Do you book or attend a lot of shows?

I see, you want to know more about local stuff: FLATTERY FOR & BY VOLUNTARY IGNORANTS’ RESTRAINT IMAGINATION. Isn’t that good?

I would willingly extend that description on a national scale, and specifically concerning everything associated with Rock music & its sub-genres in France. Besides, I’ve nevertheless thought before that I would try help some friends of mine involved in foreign bands to perform here, but I suppose time ran out on me more than I’ve suspected.

Gunslingers (2007)

Can you talk a little bit about what Gunslingers’ songwriting process is like? Does someone come to the rest of the band with a pretty finished idea or riff to compose and work out with the rest of you or is it more of a cohesive jam that you all distill into a song over a process of playing with the rest of the band?

Gunslingers is above all essentially a collective involved in exploration; improvisation has always been our chief thing, we’ve been improvising since we were kids; so we’ve found in improvisation an end in itself like from improvisation was also drawn lots of the substance for composition. There is no rule like absolute formula really, but each time an appropriate operating mode that best follows the suggestions of the imagination, or of just a sudden impulse. Songwriting starts from anywhere & nowhere, from anything to nothingness. — Then a running is automatically & intuitively suggested to the band by just keeping the least sound material explored more deeply, and the further it goes into exploration the higher it is for the mind which dares to venture. Our Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors LP is total free-form and nothing was pre-worked before.

And on the other hand, a lot of the stuff we strictly composed wasn’t initiated by improvisation… and for sure a lot was worked out around the guitar whose parts were either built up separately on my side before or directly in the rehearsal space with & under everybody’s creative Eye. But I think we’ve also known the importance of focusing all together on one single instrument so we could find how to express our common intention, as far as we’ve never really considered each member like an isolated entity creating alone independently of the others. We could spend much time on conceiving together a sequence of notes for guitar or bass, one rhythm, on just expressing one tension or a feeling; we’ve never intended to mark off too much a central point in songwriting, and I believe this has given us more freedom in the expression, individually like as a whole.

Do you all enjoy recording? I know most musicians can really appreciate the end result of all that recording, but getting into the studio and actually laying that stuff down… It can be a real pain to say the least. How is it for you all recording?

I’ll tell you what man, nothing can properly be called “ended” or “achieved” without the full acceptance of the whole you in relation with the object. And it obviously starts from ‘laying that shit down’. The studio stuff has to be set up by ME in most cases for there’s a great chance that nobody else will do it for US, but I’m not likely to dislike the first step towards “the Great what’s it”! Then, what I can say is Gunslingers’ music deals with lots of contradictory feelings, which is exhausting to experience only cause the involvement stimulus is absolutely high (while recording or not). All Gunslingers’ studio material was recorded live (with no audience), that means all of us playing all together in the same time, so I suppose we’ve always been directly concerning the pure performance. I consider a certain ecstatic pleasure as being always inherent to the performance very energy; thus, recording a performance (and if you’re not sucked by a recording process that dominates your creative energy) should always be equally ecstatic, — it’s capturing the climax of our own visceral & spiritual journey and giving the most consistent indication on the soul that it carries out through the ecstasy felt. No matter the number of times it has to be repeated before you can say “this is the one”; the good take is just the one that will appear to you as the highest combination of everything at the best time from the moment the record button was pushed. To me the supposed pain that might occur through repeated versions or interpretations (if several are needed), is more likely to be felt as an evolution through mere degrees of transportation, of elevation…until it reaches the highest and which is the achieved goal.

Let’s take some time to talk about your back catalog. In 2008 you released your debut album No More Invention on the World InSound label. What are your memories of recording that first album? Was it a pleasurable, fun experience for you? Where was it recorded at? When was it recorded? Who recorded them? What kind of equipment was used?

No More Invention was recorded (& mixed) in 2007 at “Le Ciel” (“the Sky”) in San Pedro Ville and in 3 days. It was a phenomenally intense experience. Sebastien Norman is the guy (the coolest guy) who offered us to record it and he made it so brilliantly, he exactly captured the way we sounded like, proceeded with open instinct & radicalism, just like if the recorded stuff was our perfect sonic mirror. I think he also entered our psychology greatly, and with hindsight. He used an 8-track tape (VHS) recorder…you know magnetic tapes are clearly not to displease me…

Two years later in 2010 you followed up No More Invention with Manifesto Zero also on World In Sound. Was the recording very similar to the recording of your earlier album? When and where was it recorded? Who recorded it? What kind of equipment was used?

I myself recorded & mixed Manifesto Zero in November 2009. The recorder was different but the process the same, a live recording with no audience. We adjusted the sound recording so it could meet the requirements of the new music we were playing. The sound treatment must evolve with the music you play, as much as there is no certitude to guarantee you that what once worked will work the same in a different creation context. Moreover, it clearly wasn’t specially our aim to do a similar album to No More Invention, neither in the form nor in the sound. Every Gunslingers’ record is conceived as a stand-alone piece of work, and that’s what a few inconsistent grey heads haven’t understood with us, cause their expectations never go beyond what’s already known & experienced. Also, there was no way that we’d afford to pay for a studio since we were able to do it better by ourselves; and knowing the recording method we had in mind was perfectly attuned to our conception & aesthetics, and offered us many advantages: a great autonomy in recording it the way we wanted in our own rehearsal studio, for free and at all times of day & night, and in the very heart of the work in progress. Then we used my dusty analog 4-track tape recorder, a machine I’ve had been using massively since 1999 and which I used on all the albums I was involved into, that means everything if I except NMI.

How did you originally get hooked up with World In Sound? How’s your relationship with them? Do you plan to continue working with them for future releases or have you moved on at this point?

Around 2007 I was acquainted with the reissues ‘World In Sound’ was putting up and I enjoyed some a lot. I found particularly remarkable the fact that this label was chiefly running for obscurities from the 60s/70s; a very few albums from contemporary bands (and of less interest to my opinion) were released but this seemed to be more occasional, that means the label’s true aesthetics was lying much more in the reissues from the past. This was essentially the reason for me to send them NMI, whose title is addressed to a certain Time in question. I believe being a contemporary band does not exclusively mean living in your Time, a certain level of abstraction must be reached by the disobedience towards the codes of our current era so creation can be felt for what it is in itself. Being out of date is so much the newer to me. Wolf (Wolfgang Reuther), the brother behind W.I.S, phoned me (armed with his coZZmic German accent) to tell he was into doing it with us. He was the one who first brought Gunslingers to the world’s table— Our relationship is still good, but I can’t really say if some future releases will happen together…

Your latest effort is this years (2013) Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors which is a single-sided 12”. It’s a split release between Riot Season and Les Disques Blasphematoires Du Palatin Records. Did you try anything new or radically different with the songwriting or recording of Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors? What can our readers expect from the new album?

Not at all, we didn’t try anything new nor different to us on Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors. We rather made something usual in the way we approach music, and self-evident in Gunslingers’ gesture: the appeal of musical ad lib; we just may have radicalized it into instantaneous composition and total free-form action, and more than this… we recorded it.

Concerning M.R.D.I, nothing was rehearsed before and we recorded it as it came to our mind for the first time, it’s raw material which knows no erasure, the contents and its shaping were instantaneous— I coined it “alchemical free-form”. On the record you get 2 versions (part 1 & 2), the second one is inspired by the first one and is as much a re-synthesis as an extension of it… so it’s chronologically second (and necessarily more pre-thought) but in part 2 you also get some contents that are totally unknown to part 1; both parts are deliberately complementary, as are the two fingers of the same hand…

Yes, it is a co-production between Riot Season (UK) & my label— we did our best to make sure that the core concept would succeed and this was precisely what happened, something wild that transpires no restriction.

Where was that material recorded? When was it recorded and who recorded it? What kind of equipment was used for the recording of Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors. Is Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors a limited release? If so how many copies is it limited to?

I did record it, in my rehearsal space at ‘Le Ciel’ in San Pedro Ville, in March 2012. I used the same old analog 4-track tape recorder that was used on Manifesto Zero & all GR related stuff, and with dynamic microphones. This release is indeed limited to 500 copies and each of both labels getting the half of it. It’s a nice object, an opaque white acetate medium that you might mix up with your furnitures…

Can you tell us a little bit about Les Disques Blasphematoires Du Palatin Records? When was LDBP started and what brought that about? How are things going with the label? Does LDBP release music from bands other than Gunslingers?

I founded Lesdisques Blasphematoires Du Palatin in 2006. The main idea was bringing as many as possible of self-sufficient means in order to release my own stuff (& all related stuff I’d be involved into) as I wanted, and operating on an non-profit association basis. Besides, I had no patience to wait for a label possibly interested in releasing my music and I didn’t want to depend on having to appeal to anybody by way of glorious self-promotion. I had afterwards a few fortunate opportunities for my music to be released on other labels though and I took it when it sounded consistent to me; with Gunslingers we were lucky enough to find in W.I.S some very reliable brothers who would release our first two albums with strong faith & quite promptly, and a common aesthetic interest.

But I think being able to do that stuff yourself gives you considerable stylistic (and logistic) freedom, also putting out limited short runs which has been my case is an achievable goal.

It feels like I’ve been urging myself to urgently meet my necessary needs in setting up a micro-structure that would walk synchronized enough with the recorded material; I’ve never excluded the possibility of releasing other artists but I’ve barely been able to run just my own stuff alone without difficulty up to now. The Great novelty to me is the appearance of Gunslingers on my label (with the record M.R.D.I) just recently.

I released GR’s first two LPs (Xperiments From Within The Tentacular in 2007, GR & Full-Blown Expansion in 2008), “The High Speed Recording Complex” first issue (an album the wonderful Michael Yonkers & I recorded in 2007), Paralytic FluXus (a duo including Gunslingers’ bass player & myself on drums, 2006), and lastly Gunslingers’ Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors EP in collaboration with Riot Season (2013).

Does Gunslingers plan to continue releasing music through Les Disques Blasphematoires Du Palatin Records in the future or are you looking to work with other labels as well?

I shall certainly do my utmost to get this out on LDBDP.

Does Gunslingers have any music that we haven’t talked about?

We sure do.

With the release of Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors not long ago are there any plans for any other releases coming up anytime soon or on the horizon?

There is more material that we already recorded; the tapes lie in a preferred place of my home and some highlighted halo of hope penetrates my gaze each time I happen to get close to it…

With these completely insane recent international postage rate increases where’s the best place for our U.S. readers to pick up copies of your albums? More and more these days we’re exposed to great international music but with the recent international shipping price a lot of international releases feel like a carrot on a stick for me as I just can’t afford the shipping on a single LP these days…

Well firstly…about your last remark (“I just can’t afford the shipping on a single LP these days”): how could you find a full length more affordable? — I suppose when you purchase a record you aim for the quality of the music it contains in the first place, not for quantity. Obviously it is then no less enviable to pay for a shorter record (of the same weigh & price as an ordinary full LP) if you think the music is absolutely your taste; 1 minute of music can bliss & blow your mind like no record of 45 minutes could do— it’s a matter of fucking elevation. Duration should neither be a defect nor a plus, but just a mere necessity of time that suits a pure stylish proclamation the best. Next, we see lots of aesthetical mistakes happening around— ‘Too short’ a record does not exist to me as a substantial defect cause it would mean the music is probably too good to the listener who wants more of the same stuff. Otherwise he would more possibly describe it as “fortunately that fucking horrible record is already over!” or “god, it’s perfect it’s over as I needed to take the tangent!” ; whereas ‘Too long’ a record means the music (or part of it) is more than likely boring, which in this case is an aesthetical mistake.

If a bad-&-equally-too-long record weighed less it would make more sense to me since that shit could be shipped at a more affordable price and in proportion of its surfeit of mediocrity. But essentially, if international shipping is ridiculously too expensive nowadays (which is absolutely true & insane) I don’t think it comes from the record duration.

In our case, Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors is not a ‘single’, but a 2-track album…which is fundamentally different. ‘Single’, in a certain use of the term and concerning certain concept, can sound as very simplistic a titling inherited from the mercantilisation & commoditisation of aesthetics. It’s important that people primarily focus on the concept emitted by the band.

…BUT… Your admirable readers in US can sure find our record(s) from our Brothers at Permanent Records (Chicago or LA) or AquariusRecords (SF)…or maybe even at our friend Grady’s Record Refugee (Ventura CA)…

What about our international and overseas readers?

They might consider the band’s very house LDBDP.

Where’s the best place to keep up on the latest Gunslingers’ news?

Me, as far as I’m concerned. Then the pixelized version: http://bonhomie.free.fr

Can you talk a little bit about the philosophy or guiding idea behind Gunslingers?

“Gunslingers” offers no reason. Being appropriately transported to the whole us’ best place is all we can aspire to. — We’re not necessarily meant to intelligibly mean as far as our audience consists not exclusively in humans but more widely in the Cosmos; our language is expressive motion, our path its primitive conveyor and suffers no mere hyperbole. I leave those who want the pastime to feast upon semantics. And also… Have enough to do with musical cabals without needing them for entertainment. Always make the least impression on the common daub enjoyers.

GR at home (2014)

I know that you are the most involved member of the band when it comes to mixing and recording so I’m interested to hear what your thoughts on Gunslingers would be? The music at times sounds very chaotic but if you listen carefully there are patterns and hooks that emerge from the din. How do you go about creating and crafting those sounds when it comes to recording and mixing?

During a recording session, we approach our music exactly in the same way as we usually do… we’ve always been giving all privilege to the performance itself; that means the recording process does not interfere with the very way our music is built up—, we attach great importance to deconstruction on sound & form and this all arises directly from our playing.

The material is captured through a very minimal setup process consisting in an analog 4-track tape recorder. When mixing that captured material, you know I just take care of merging the instruments into one another (just like a painter would harmonize substance & form, ‘chiaroscuro’ etc) and with more or less magnification… it is like drawing a clear line on the aesthetic of the wished sound, and that’s enough to drain seven thunders’ brains including mine!

I happened for a very few songs (from both our previous albums) to afterwards create some subliminal sonic ornaments that I added by way of post-produced analog tapes manipulations (like reversed tapes, treatment on sound speed & height), but this represents something pretty minimal and, like I said, ornamental.

I know you release solo material. You’ve got four albums out at least that I know of. Who plays with you on those solo albums or does it alternate between albums? Can you talk about what this work is all about?

On my solo albums there is only me alone playing, or me & I… should I say. It’s been one of my key preoccupations for years to record myself playing successively all instruments (and on each of my solo albums up to now); I’m not inclined to refrain from such solitary musings, I will have been the one who conceived the integrality of his solo recordings that way… and I just keep going like a dissident in the operating mode.

Be it as it may, the notion of ‘band’ as mere assembly-of-persons-playing-together experiences kind of a shock in its basis… but the notion of ‘individual’ as well since I object _through action_ to seeing it as confined-to-himself-and-restricted. I’m precisely more after the things that could seem like locked away from the individual’s capacity, I want to explore some landscapes unknown to the simplistic representation of the workability; the vision of music only matters. And paradoxically, even a group could barely reproduce or cover just the half of all the material I recorded alone. Several persons in the same band would develop a collective instinct of the ‘entente’ (although the collective would have to face each of its member’s respective singularity & difference), when in my case instinct & intuition, and upon which depends an essential part of what makes that music what it is, are exclusively drawn from just one man, and increased tenfold and redistributed to each instrument. These are too intangible things to imitation, too spontaneously personal to be palpable by the collective ‘entente’. I wouldn’t dare even playing some of that stuff again myself. Being into it is like moving through the troubled waters between the conscious & unconscious. Pure action often surpasses all preconceived expectations, for when spontaneous it is loaded with a dose of the unpredictable which is in the moment.

GR’s music is literally experimental & contemplative, built on the transmission from sudden vision to sudden action (uncontrolled accidents included), and using even the most fastidious (yet necessary) means to materialize it onto some recordable surface. It now feels like the more I record that way, the more it gets titanic a task to achieve. Perhaps my demands are getting higher.

Now in place of several persons playing together, the individual serves all the operations but can only do it in the chronological succession, exploring all instruments separately and getting them all to collide progressively up to the ultimate one. The genesis & mode of generation of such material engage differently with Time—, when I play & record an instrument, I endeavour to do it with the spontaneous vision of the one that’s to come next. To be mentioned that each instrument assigned to a track (I use a 4-track recorder) is played on the entire duration of the music piece and in one blow (no trick no montage no overdubbing).

My method is quite simple. For example, 3 instruments (Guitar-Bass-Drums). I get to play the Drums and while playing it I hear the potential Bass in my head that’s to come next; and likewise, when my mind hears the Guitar while playing the Bass upon the captured Drums, I finally know it’s the whole band right inside me and ejected from me that’s to be heard next while I’ll be playing the Guitar.

You released the face melting A Reverse Age last year on Mexican Summer limited to 750 hand-numbered copies. Do you have any upcoming releases planned or in the works at this point?

Yes sir, I plan to record new material soon this year…

Do you have a preferred medium of release for your music? With all of the various mediums that are available to musicians these days I’m always curious to hear why they choose the specific methods that they do, and why. If so why?

I do, absolutely— no doubt vinyl (lacquer-cutting process / acetate, to be precise) is my preferred medium. The way the recording grooves are cut is totally far out! I’ve figured vinyl, and according to this process, is the most suitable for rendering the sounds captured with my analog 4-track tape recorder, the sound amplitude & spectra is precise & powerful & colorful and run through your speakers like a fuckin’ untamed Beast. If you try to compare it with a cd of the same music, it’s another world, almost another album…lots of frequencies which contribute to the analog sound dynamics get lost in a cd…

Slingers

I grew up around a fairly large collection of music and I loved randomly grabbing something off of the shelf, staring at the artwork, reading the liner notes and being transported to some far off distant place. Having something to hold and look at, read and feel, while I was listening to the music made for a much more complete listening experience and offered a rare, albeit brief, glimpse inside the mind of the artists that made it. Can you talk about your connection, if there is one, with physically released music?

Holding a physical format into one’s hands (and more specifically a vinyl) draws us entirely to the artist & his music, our curiosity gets higher as the cover fascinates or intrigues us, there’s but a small step to connect with the sound and we just have to remove the record from its sleeve we know this… but no way time hasn’t come yet we still need to touch the paper and drink its ink one more time and enter each of its pores properly before, our Eye is wild & rabid it wants to hear visually first, we prolong the excitement for it’s too good & sexy and getting more & more sweaty we delay the liberation time again and then we might start the same experience again while listening to it even yeah man I know what you mean…by physically…

GR at home (2014)

Do you have a music collection at all?

In fact not really… it’s rather the music collection that has me! The more it collects me the more it hears me…

I’ve never had the spirit of the big fat collector to be honest. Though there are a lot of records that would certainly make my day(s) to get, still the ones I own are exactly my taste, without unnecessary overstock. We can collect ad infinitum, but taste evolving forms itself through time & knowledge and cannot be traded. I suppose an essential record must be tasteful to you over time and pass the test of all revolutions. I have a comfortable amount of records that are essential to me.

Mat, Ant, GR (left to right, 2008)

Thanks so much for taking the time to finish this, I know it wasn’t short and it can’t have been “fun” but I hope it was at least entertaining to look back on the history of the band like this. Is there anything at all that I missed or that you’d just like to take this opportunity to talk about?

Thanks to you for your interest in our band. I hope I was useful.… Man, have you ever heard about the black dwarf man?…

– Roman Rathert

DISCOGRAPHY
(2006) Paralytic FluXus – Paralytic FluXus – CD-R – Lesdisques Blasphématoires Du Palatin
(2007) GR – Xperiments From Within The Tentacular – CDR, 12” – Lesdisques Blasphématoires Du Palatin Records
(2007/2010) Michael Yonkers & GR – The High Speed Recording Complex – CD-R, 12” – Burka For Everybody/Lesdisques Blasphématoires Du Palatin Records
(2008/2009) GR – GR & Full-Blown Expansion – CD, 12” – World In Sound/Lesdisques Blasphématoires Du Palatin Records
(2012) GR – A Reverse Age – 12” – Mexican Summer Records
(2008) Gunslingers – No More Invention – CD, 12” – World In Sound Records
(2010) Gunslingers – Manifesto Zero – CD, 12” – World In Sound Records
(2013) Gunslingers – Massacre-Rock Deviant Inquisitors – 12” – Lesdisques Blasphématoires Du Palatin/Riot Season Records

One Comment
  1. Aug Augleby says:

    GR kills it man! Great psych stuff!

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