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Home , Alex G, Deafheaven, DIIV, Eli Keszler, Kerry McCoy (musician), Kode9

ADHOC Issue 9 MASTHEAD EDITORIAL EVENTS LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

SENIOR EDITORS EVENTS DIRECTOR “Influenced by” can be a slippery slope. It’s a tempting descrip- Mike Sugarman Ric Leichtung tor for music writers, helpful for would-be record buyers, and Joe Bucciero frequently a compliment for the artist at hand. A quick, favorable MARKETING MANAGER comparison to White Light/White Heat is widely comprehensible FOUNDING EDITORS Tyler Richman (to a certain milieu, at least), and it lets everyone know a given Emilie Friedlander rock & roll record hits the satisfying sonic spots, right? Of course, Ric Leichtung “influenced by” can hurt too. Writers can deploy it in an effort to paint a record as “unoriginal.” An overabundance of such refer- CONTRIBUTING EDITOR ences, meanwhile, might distract the reader. And while White Bobby Power Light/White Heat is great, what contemporary artist wants to hear for the umpteenth time that they sound like something from 1968? COPY EDITOR In this issue of AdHoc, we look at the influences and inspira- Tyler Richman tions behind some top-notch recent music. But rather than take the influence solely at sonic value—i.e., this record sounds like CONTRIBUTING WRITERS White Light/White Heat—we search for the deeper implications, Michael Blair personal and societal, to which these inspirations point. L.A. punk Miguel Gallego Gun Outfit is influenced by ’70s outlaw country, sure enough; Tabs Out how do they approach these time-worn touchstones, though, to DeForrest Brown Jr. fashion a twenty-first-century object of community-building? layers his compositions with dense -economic DESIGN theoretical concepts; how does he use these ideas in concert Sharon Gong with cold to access something ultimately deeply personal? In the issue we also speak to and COVER about the formulations of their recent albums, both of whom cull Rachel Giannascoli ideas not just from the music they listen to but the visual arts as well, all as a means to explore human relationships in nuanced ways. “Influenced by,” for these artists, is only the tip of the cre- ative iceberg. Anyone can put together a song that demonstrates one’s knowledge of cool shit, after all: a lyric that quotes Burroughs here, a beat that apes Neu! there, whatever, nothing more than a namecheck. When an artist finds new modes of expression, of dissent, of relating to the self and/or the world, within these shared cultural reference points, though, whether it’s William Burroughs or Limp Bizkit—that’s the good stuff.

ADHOC #9 2 ADHOC #9 3 EVENTS 2015 2015 2015 2015 2015 2015 2016

09.26 10.09 10.20 11.05 11.14 12.04 01.14 Silent Barn Benefit Heaven’s Gate Deafeaven U.S. Girls Teen Suicide Kamasi Washington Trans-Pecos w/ Alex G Buck Gooter Envy Escape-ism Yvete & Friends Frankie Cosmos Lushes Tribulation 999Reversus Diet Cig Webser Hall 10.02 Palm Alphaville Webser Hall Babycasles Baby’s All Right Eskimeaux Emily Yacina 03.1 Told Slant Sky High Murals 10.21 11.06 11.15 12.05 Dawn Richard Atic Abasement Future HQ Majical Cloudz The Hotelier Gwar Sepalcure The Marlin Room Real Life Buildings Record Release w/ Runaway Brother Born of Osiris Avalon Emerson at Webser Hall Baby’s All Right 10.09 She-Devils Oso Oso Batlecross Palisades Abbi Press National Sawdus Spirit of The Beehive Webser Hall 03.14-16 10.02 Mothica The Studio 12.09 Beach House Ought Diveo 10.23 at Webser Hall 11.17 Tanlines Webser Hall LVL UP Beshken Forth Wanderers Oberhofer Rick from Pile Palisades Rashad Becker 11.07 Mal Devisa Webser Hall 03.31 The Silent Barn Bob Bellerue Fever The Ghos PWR BTTM Junior Boys 10.10 Trans-Pecos Lightning Bug The Studio 12.11 Webser Hall 10.03 Red Fang Alphaville at Webser Hall Modern Baseball Makthaverskan Whores 10.23 PUP Lower Wild Thrones Ex-Cult 11.07 11.17 Jef Rosensock Baby’s All Right Palisades Squad Car Wolf Eyes Nicole Dollanganger Tiny Moving Parts Surfort Trans-Pecos Foxes in Ficion Webser Hall 10.03 10.10 Alphaville Emily Reo Vocal Fry w/ DWMS10 w/ 11.07 Baby’s All Right 12.11 Mitski Sudanim b2b MM 10.23 YOB Parquet Courts Lesli Jamison Wen Widowseak Black Cobra 11.18 Pill Jenny Zhang Imaabs Mega Bog The Marlin Room Hudson Mohawke Warsaw Margaret Ross Divoli S’vere Trans-Pecos at Webser Hall and Special Gues Shea Stadium Palisades The-Dream 12.19 10.27 11.08 Webser Hall Craw 10.04 10.11 Laced Record Release DIIV Brain Tentacles Desroyer Deaf Wish w/ The Men 11.19 Stats Jennifer Casle Shop Talk The Funs Sunflower Bean together PANGEA Webser Hall Bonnie Baxter Wall Webser Hall White Reaper Alphaville Shea Stadium Simon Doom 12.19 10.06 11.13 Shea Stadium Royal Trux Guardian Alien 10.14 10.28 Lee Ranaldo Webser Hall Jon Mueller Neon Indian Hauschka Ancient Ocean 11.20 Byron Wesbrook Tamaryn Samuli Kosminen Trans-Pecos together PANGEA Brown Water Wampum Band Webser Hall Jefrey Zeigler White Reaper Alphaville National Sawdus 11.13 Surfort 10.17 U.S. Girls Baby’s All Right 10.06 AdHoc Car Wash 10.28 Escape-ism Kurt Vile & The Violaters Hand & Detail Marching Church Rebel Kind 11.20 WAXAHATCHEE Norman Wesberg Alphaville Kode9 Luke Roberts 10.17 (of Swans) M.E.S.H. Webser Hall Desrucion Unit Trans FX 11.14 Geng PAWNS Saint Vitus Chandra Palisades 10.07 Alphaville Future Punx Kurt Vile & The Violaters 10.29 Olivia Neutron-John 11.21 WAXAHATCHEE 10.17 Youth Lagoon Trans-Pecos Priess Luke Roberts Run For Cover CMJ Moon King Shopping Webser Hall Showcase Webser Hall 11.14 Arm Candy Palisades Nada Surf Palisades 10.08 10.31 Slothrus Alex G Record Release 10.20 Halloween w/ Webser Hall 11.22 w/ Ronald Paris Batles Joanna Gruesome, 11.14 Frankie Cosmos EP Forth Wanderers Webser Hall Aye Nako NOBUNNY Release w/ Baby’s All Right King of Cats David Peel All Dogs PWR BTTM Crazy & The Brains The Marlin Room Shea Stadium Palisades at Webser Hall

ADHOC #9 4 ADHOC #9 5 CONTENTS

Los Angeles is my New Bermuda: A Conversation with Deafheaven’s George Clarke Emilie Friedlander 8

One-Sentence Album Reviews AdHoc 16

Trailer Trash: Gun Outfit’s Fugitive Michael Blair 22

“One Aspect of What’s Cool About it”: Conversing with Rachel and Alex G Miguel Gallego 30

Who Has Tapes Anymore? #22 Tabs Out 38

Zero Work Outruns Us All: An Interview with Kode9 DeForres Brown Jr. 46

Comic Nicole Dollanganger 52

ADHOC #9 6 ADHOC #9 7 FRIEDLANDER DEAFHEAVEN

Emilie Friedlander seaks with the Deafeaven frontman about moving cities, “ L O S A N G E L E S growing up, and the creation of the group’s powerful third LP, New Bermuda. IS MY ‘NEW BERMUDA’”

It’s a little after noon on a Sunday in late Bay Area call center employees—were September, and George Clarke is having presumably feeling when they made it. a hard time finding a quiet place to chat. As a slightly younger Clarke put it to The “If you hear screaming in the background, FADER, “If this band doesn’t work out, I apologize,” he says over the phone from you might find me begging somewhere.” A his home in Los Angeles. “There’s a lot of Fast forward a couple years, world people in my living room playing Fantasy tours, and rounds of backlash from Football right now.” By his own admission, purists in the metal community, and the Deafheaven frontman and Bay Area George would find himself in a better CONVERSATION native doesn’t care much for the game; place than he’d ever been: frontman of and he doesn’t care much for Southern a successful rock band, newly solvent, either, having relocated there and in the sort of loving relationship that with his girlfriend and bandmate Kerry gives one thoughts of settling down. WITH McCoy in December of last year. The latter “I think thematically, Sunbather dealt aversion, he explains, forms the subject with a longing for a greater life, and a of Deafheaven’s third studio album, New longing for materialism,” Clarke explains Bermuda, which finds the screaming to me. “The new album deals with having DEAFHEAVEN’S frontman lost in a very different way than those things and kind of being let down.” he was around the time Sunbather, the Growing up is never easy business, but group’s 2013 and - it can be especially hard when you’re melding breakout record, came out. living in a city as dislocated and isolating GEORGE With its pummeling tremolos as the city where he tried to do it. and furiously cantering percussion, Here, Clarke explains how Los Angeles Sunbather encapsulated in sound the became his Bermuda Triangle—and last-ditch sense of urgency that he inspired Deafheaven’s most punishing, CLARKE and McCoy—two formerly homeless viscerally impactful record to date.

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ADHOC What’s the sory behind the title of the new record? GEORGE CLARKE Basically, in the las year I moved from to Los Angeles. I had certain goals in mind, certain expecations that came from moving: greater opportunities, a whole new area, a broader friend group, the opportunity to live with my girlfriend for the firs time. Jus a new city that was more afordable. But I found the whole move to be a whole lot more difcult than that. There were a lot of asecs to living on your own—real seps to moving into adulthood—that I found to be challeng- ing. And because of that, I became really depressed over my entire situation. I felt very trapped, very alone and frusrat- ed—and the record jus deals with those feelings. So I called it New Bermuda. Los Angeles is my “new Bermuda”; it’s a place I’d considered to be a paradise to some extent, but everything was swallowed up by the waters of reality before I was able to reach that sate of paradise. AH Have you reached it yet? GC Absolutely not. But every- thing is all in good time. AH Is there something about the topography of the city itself that lends itself to the feeling of being los? GC Yeah, I think to a certain extent. Los Angeles is much more disconneced than San Francisco. It’s srawling, and it feels very suburban, so I definitely feel that it lends itself to isolation and loneliness to a certain degree. I’m much more adjused to city life, and that’s where I feel mos comfortable. I don’t feel like an Angeleno. AH How do you like the sun? GC I have a very love/hate rela- tionship with it. I think I used to love it, but then I got too much of it—and now I can’t sand the heat and am patiently waiting for it to be gone.

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AH Did you sill feel conneced AH There are some prety complicated to the Bay Area music scene? arrangements on the album. How GC Yes and no. There’s definitely a does your writing process work? community there for extreme music, GC For this album, it was awesome. desite all the financial changes the city We’d been touring with [drummer] Dan has gone through. But Deafeaven never [Tracy] and [bassis] Stephen [Clark] and really fit in anywhere. In black metal or [guitaris] Shiv [Mehra] for so long, but avant-garde black metal or whatever you we hadn’t had the opportunity to write a want to call it—we’ve never really fit in. record with them yet. The writing dynamic Either people like us but we don’t fit in, or didn’t alter too much: Kerry [McCoy] would it’s a scene where we should fit in but no sart writing music and arranging it, and one likes us. We’re kind of the loners of we’d present them with the skeleton of a the music world. We’ve jus sort of had song, conceptually. Dan would play along to make our own way mos of the time. to it and add his own rhythmic quirks, and AH How would you say the new Shiv would have an idea for a lead, and record compares to Sunbather, Stephen would do the same thing. Their in terms of overall mood? contributions really enhanced the songs. GC The idea is, if everything I’ve ever AH People are saying this album is wanted is what I now have and I’m not heavier and more “metal” than Sunbather— happy, then I have to sart digging deeper. do you agree with that assessment? I have to reflec, and I have to reconcile GC I think that we definitely had some these surface-level desires with what I more classic influences that we interjeced really want. There’s also the idea of, if I’m in a way that made the songs a litle beefi- not happy now, then what will it take to er—, for example. But, I don’t achieve that? I don’t think I’ve found that know... People have this whole thing about yet, but I think it helps to write about it Sunbather not being a “metal” album, and and form an album around those ideas. I’ve never agreed with that. I’d describe AH Would you say there’s a trajecory that this record as being an enhanced version New Bermuda follows, narrative-wise? of [all our records]. You’ve got metal parts— GC Mildly. It deals a lot with my romantic or whatever you wanna call them—that are relationship, and the sruggle with living are heavier, but also sofer parts that are with someone for the firs time, and having a litle more fully formed and a litle more it be not really what it’s cracked up to be. dynamic. I think it’s jus a larger produc Sort of being let down, which transfers over overall, and a litle bit more concise. As to being biter about the move in the firs you play together, and as you undersand place and hating the city—even though the your influences more and more, you’re city itself hasn’t done anything to you. The able to write records that are truer to las song deals with the release of those yourself. I think we’re on a path to defining feelings, and agreeing to escape every- our sound, and what is no one else’s. thing—deciding to sop puting efort into AH I hear some influences on everything and taking the easy way out. the record, like a lot of big time guitar solo- AH The easy way out—what ing and shredding. And I also hear some does that mean? country influences, like with the slide guitar. GC It’s sort of—the song is a met- GC We take from so many diferent aphor for drowning yourself. places, and I think a lot of that rocking out

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comes from all playing in a room together my seps under the illusion that I am and exchanging ideas—things get a litle exploring.” We always pick a borrowed looser, and you sart throwing in guitar piece of writing for the inner sleeve. I solos. And you’ll be like, it acually doesn’t think I’ve always writen with a touch of sound that weird, or bad, or I kinda like it, surrealism and bizarre imagery to get my and we should play with that some more. point across. His writing definitely helped AH It sounds like you’re me consruc the lyrics on this record. having a good time. AH What was it like experiencing all that GC Absolutely. What’s funny is that even sudden atention when Sunbather came though I consider the record to be a very out—including some backlash from the dark record—and even though when I wrote metal community—and then having to a lot of those lyrics, I was in a very lone- come back and make a new record? some place—the recording process was ac- GC I mean, I don’t think a lot about the tually the mos fun we’ve ever had in a su- outside pressure. For us, the bigges dio. It’s kind of an interesing juxtaposition. pressure was a personal one. Writing AH What’s the sory behind the oil a record that was beter than the las painting on the album cover? one, that didn’t sound like the las one. GC When I was writing the record, and That was the bigges hardship: liter- I was feeling kind of down, I would play ally not wanting to repeat yourself. the piano in my sare time. I wanted a AH Is there something that you thick oil on canvas painting, and Nick fear people will misundersand Steinhardt suggesed Allison Shulnik about this album? would work perfecly for that, and she did. GC Well… no. Our albums are based in I gave her a painting called The Pianis by complete self-reflecion. I’m not really Polish artis Jarek Puczel as reference, as talking about anyone other than me, to be I felt the mood accompanied the album completely blunt. The whole experience well. We contaced her, and I gave her of this band is completely self-serving. the work of the Polish painter and said, Not saying that it’s not nice when peo- “Jus do this in the way that you would ple connec, but in terms of what people do it.” [The figure] is sort of solemn and get or don’t get, I don’t know until peo- looking downward, and I thought it fit the ple sart hearing it. Going into it, it’s an music and themes of the record, and so album about depression and not knowing we went with it. The acual physical thing what to do about depression. If I tried to is gorgeous—it’s huge and it comes out put it in broad terms, that would be it. three inches of of the canvas. It’s a lot of AH How do feel now in relation to the head paint; it took around three weeks to dry. sace in which you made the album? AH Were there any books you GC I feel beter. I’m always beter when were reading around the time you I’m being creative or being busy. So I’m were recording the album that happy it’s done. I’m happy we don’t have to influenced the way it turned out? play Sunbather songs that much anymore. GC I was reading a lot of André I’m happy we can sart touring again, Breton—he’s an old surrealis French sart redirecing our focus. When I have poet. In fac, the quote on the inside things to look forward to, I’m at my bes. of the [album’s] sleeve is a quote from him: “Perhaps I am doomed to retrace

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Alex G “Christmas On Earth”) in its sounds as Dreamcrusher the recorded work of Harmonia, the Beach Music well: Heule’s kick-snare thuds rumble Hackers All of Them Hackers kosmische supergroup of Michael [Domino] and explode because of how beatifully he [Fire Talk] Rother (Neu!, Kraftwerk) and Cluster’s Alex G’s Domino debut sees him plays with silence, and Orcutt’s extra-tre- A disorienting blend of bru- Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Möbius. burrowing into still more warped, har- bly has never sounded tal physicality and pop sensibilities, — Bobby Power rowing spaces, employing free stylistic so savagely melodic, cutting open skin Dreamcrusher’s debut EP finds odd utility leaps and grotesque vocal processing one redemption song after another. through a voice that’s politically charged Hierogyphic Being & to gesture toward the buildups and — Michael Blair and unwilling to submit to expectations, JITU Ahn-Sam-Buhl collapses of personal attachment in his culminating in a memorable work based We Are Not the First most achingly intimate record to date. Bing & Ruth around ecstatic and manic inspiration. [RVNG Intl.] — Amelia Pitcherella City Lake — Philip Neil Lord Jamal Moss’s insincs for pulsing, [RVNG Intl.] warped-out grooves and lilting sound- Andrew Bernstein Originally co-released on Happy Talk Giant Claw scapes find fertile ground in the continuum Cult Appeal and Gizeh back in 2010, and underlining Deep Thoughts of afro-futuris and techno, and gets [Hausu Mountain] the project’s pristine take on modern [Orange Milk] ace backup from an all-sar cas includ- On the A-side of his recent solo classical, City Lake now resurfaces as Orange Milk co-owner Keith Rankin, ing Marshall Allen, Daniel Carter, Greg Hausu Mountain tape, Horse Lords mae- the heart-achingly poignant prequel to p.k.a. Giant Claw, follows the epochal Dark Fox, and Shelley Hirsch, among others. stro Bernstein overblows deep drones Bing & Ruth’s Tomorrow Was The Golden Web with Deep Thoughts, an affair lighter — Daniel Creahan and mesmerizing melodic patterns; on the Age, issued last year by RVNG Intl. on R&B samples and heavier on airy, uto- B-side, he lets his synth do the talking, — Bobby Power pian compositions that would’ve delighted Idea Fire Company spreading fractured electronic bleeps and forward-thinking audiences in Viennese Lost at Sea blurts across 23-minutes-worth of tape. Deafheaven symphony halls three hundred years [Recital] — Joe Bucciero New Bermuda ago—and should delight anyone reading Idea Fire Company—their name [ANTI-] this sentence in 2015 (and beyond). indicative of their quicksilver approach to Autre Ne Veut Exultant black metal hails dissolve — Joe Bucciero avant-garde songwriting—have crafted an Age of Transparency into calm acoustic pockets and return to album that imagines the band as the en- [Downtown] pelt us over the course of five 10-min- Gun Outfit tertainment aboard a modest cruiseship Less polished than his first full- ute tracks, a deepening of the bound- Dream All Over marred by Beckettian existential dread; length, Autre Ne Veut’s latest effort ary-slashing ethos of 2013’s Sunbather [Paradise of Bachelors] playing sparse instrumentals that begin weds his characteristic exuberant R&B that overwhelms in its ferocity. Gun Outfit brandish a little twang to gradually lose their center of gravity as and swelling pop with glitchy, inter- — Amelia Pitcherella and a little jangle to fight and hon- the band subjects the ship’s passengers net-era anxiety, resulting in an album or the encroaching hazy darkness on to their brand of creative inebriation. that is altogether grand and chaotic, Deerhunter their first LP for Paradise of Bachelors, — Ross Devlin cinematic and internally ruptured. Fading Frontier exploring personal transcendence by — Julia Selinger [4AD] turning their narrowed focus inwards. Joey Molinaro While Fading Frontier lacks much — Jordan Reyes Say At Last—I Who Will Forever Evil, Bill Orcutt & Jacob Felix Heule of the jagged cosmic punch that made Yet Do Forever Good Colonial Donuts its predecessors so repeatable, it amps Harmonia [Auris Apothecary] [Palilalia] up Deerhunter’s omnipresent-but-of- Complete Works This devilish blend of hypersoul and With a title from an Oakland donut ten-clouded pop sensibilities, re- [Grönland] dark mater is an unsightly takedown of shop and cover art from a google image sulting in nine smart and accessible Following the recent passing of classic metal tropes, which makes it all the search for “Bob Marley Tattoo,” Heule tracks that, in mos other ’ Dieter Möbius, and after decades in more meaningful as Molinaro warps tempo and Orcutt’s Colonial Donuts mixes the hands, would be hopelessly saccharine physical obscurity and/or standalone and tradition into some Creole gumbo physical and the spiritual (song titles adult-contemporary-radio fodder. reissue efforts, Grönland Records issues of brass, srings, and murder-mysery. include “This Song Is Called Reify” and — Joe Bucciero a complete, five-LP box set detailing — Jusin Spicer

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Julia Holter Micachu & The Shapes Ought The Mantles Have You In My Wilderness Good Bad Happy Sad Sun Coming Down All Odds End [Domino] [Rough Trade] [Constellation] [Slumberland] turns to the mid-2000s Composer Mica Levi and co. turn Committing to the wiry post-punk The Mantles continue to show for string-arranging advice from Dido, in a weary, occasionally equivocal al- aesthetic they established with their exhil- flashes of improvement on their joy- Norah Jones, and Pink Floyd on a bum that takes the blunt fabric of every- arating debut effort last year, Ought deftly fully shambolic second effort for new collection of airy, delicate songs day thought and feeling and sitches it avoid the sophomore slump syndrome Slumberland by sharpening the melodic that explores the journey new lovers into a shimmering patchwork shrine to with an articulate collection of songs sensibilities that made their career. make on their jolting accension out of learning to live with what hurts you. that confirms Ought’s position as one — Steven Spoerl the real world’s toxic atmosphere. — Joseph Ocon of today’s more exciting young bands. — Ross Devlin — Steven Spoerl US Girls Midday Veil Half Free Laurel Halo This Wilderness Personable [4AD] In Situ [Beyond Beyond is Beyond] New Lines Eclectic but not incoherent, a [Honest Jon’s] The psychedelic noir of Midday Veil [Peak Oil] kaleidoscopic 36 minute survey of her In Situ, Laurel Halo’s first full-length transforms from Manson to Numan, with Veering into the deepest reach- project’s most pleasing pop-inflect- for Honest Jon’s, is rejuvenating, a a future bent on the safety of robotics, the es of his modular workouts, New Lines ed production tendencies, Miss Remy series of eight kaleidoscopic sketch- dangers of Big Brother and the monoliths finds M. Geddes Gengras, king of steps up to the relatively big stage of es that reminds us that equillibrium is we erect to isolationism blown apart by synths, reviving his Personable mon- 4AD and shines brighter than before. composed of infinite gentle twitches. a band always ahead of the curve and iker for its third LP of pulsing, slightly — Max Burke — Joseph Ocon somehow pleasantly “behind the times.” jarring synths and dissonant textures. — Justin Spicer — Bobby Power Wrekmeister Harmonies Lee Noble Night of Your Ascension Un Look Nicole Dollanganger Seth Graham [Thrill Jockey)] [Patient Sounds] Natural Born Losers No. 00 in Clean Life On Night of Your Ascension, J.R. Composed using a palete of subtly [Eerie Organization] [Orange Milk] Robinson’s long-standing fascination grotesque, peripherally but potently charm- One of 2015’s mos unexpeced On his newest Orange Milk effort, with ineffable crimes and famous pariahs ing sounds, Un Look heightens Lee Noble’s releases is a gem of a full-length that Seth Graham plays to the rafters, satu- continues to bear fruit as he summons smoky, aeshetic for what sees Dollanganger (a Grimes afliate) rating his compositions (richer and more a brigade of 30 noteworthy musicians is, unquesionably, his bes album to date. broadening her atmosheric range by virtue adventurous than ever) with an oper- for two ambitious compositions full of — Bobby Power of collaboration, bringing about some of the atic gravity—skitteringly combining the opposites like brutality and lyricism. mos haunting pop songs in recent memory. powers of Wagner and Robert Ashley. — Jean Burset Majical Cloudz — Steven Spoerl — Joe Bucciero Are You Alone? Wolf Eyes [Matador] Spacin’ I Am A Problem: Mind In Pieces On Are You Alone?, Majical Garden of Delete Total Freedom [Third Man] Cloudz showcase their propensity [Warp] [Richie] After declaring over, for melancholic, emotionally direct More on this in the next issue, The rad times express rolls on in Wolf Eyes release their latest album songs, due largely in part to Devon but for now we’ll say that it’s a Philadelphia outfit Spacin’s second LP on ’s Third Man Records, Walsh’s unique, affecting croon; disjointed, pathological mess brimming of psychedelic garage wizardry, boasting taking its brand of trip metal into mel- a stark yet atmospheric aesthetic with pain, excess, and (per usual) short burners with barbed hooks and lower and more organic territory in the abounds, both in Walsh’s singular voice genius fucking sound design. long, anti-conniption sautée-ers. process, without losing the weird. and the orchestral instrumentation — Joe Bucciero — Jordan Reyes — Maddie Rehayem co-crafted by Owen Pallett. — Julia Selinger

ADHOC #9 20 ADHOC #9 21 BLAIR GUN OUTFIT TRAILER TRASH: GUN OUTFIT’S FUGITIVE COUNTRY Michael Blair Gun Outfit’s gone country. Though the L.A. punks grew up considers Gun Outfit’s thrashing alongside bands like in the Olympia, recent Dream All Over MUSIC Washington, DIY scene, their recent tunes have steadily drifted and the complicated toward the tears and the twang of good old country music. Dream relationship between All Over, their new album on Paradise of Bachelors, is by far the country and . group’s most countrified set of songs yet. Wide-open electric guitar licks flow into Dylan Sharp and Carrie Keith’s dueling drawls, sometimes sounding like an out-there, lost-on-the-highway redo of Johnny and June Carter Cash. “I looked familiar in a foreign land,” Keith sings on “Legends of My Own”—a fitting evocation of the ease with which this punk band has slowly slipped into the faraway land of steel guitars and ten-gallon hats. While Gun Outfit leans farther country than most other contemporary punk bands, they’re still far from alone in mixing hardcore and honky tonk. Recent records from punk bands like Iceage, The Men, and Parquet Courts also draw from country’s hallmark trebly telecasters and tear-stained sincerity. It makes sense, too, that Gun Outfit’s changing sound follows their move from Olympia to L.A., the city where earlier punk bands like X, , and The Gun Club first dipped their combat boots into country, , and barroom . Yet while much scholarly and critical writing on the intersection of country and DIY music has been devoted to late ’80s and ’90s “alt-country” groups like Uncle Tupelo—who injected SST Records attitudes into country sounds—very little

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Gun Outfit’s new spin on outlaw has been said about this intersection’s punk- imagery, banjo rolls, and open- centered inverse, despite a long lineage of tunings begs the more specific DIY Americana traditionalists stretching question of what role country music from to Modest Mouse. It’s might have to play in the land of the clear that country and punk are old friends— underground in 2015. connected, among other things, by their original white, working-class audiences—but Gun Outfit’s new spin on outlaw imagery, banjo rolls, and open-tunings begs the more specific question of what role country music might have to play in the land of the underground in 2015. A few new punk bands, like a few old punk bands, have turned their ears towards Nashville: what’s at stake, beyond slower time signatures and a few fiddle breaks here and there? One cultural backroad connecting country to today’s punk comes from both genres’ original marginal status in the dominant musical culture. Often characterized as “low-class,” country and punk have also been historically marginalized as aesthetically “bad” music made for and by morally or aesthetically “bad” people. Terms like “punk,” “redneck,” and “white trash” carry these different connotations of cultural “badness.” ‘70s punks proudly tattooed, pierced, and moshed their bodies, while ‘70s “rednecks” chewed tobacco, pulled on whiskey bottles, and tacked spurs to their riding boots. Both In his essay “White Trash Alchemies of the Abject Sublime: working-class subcultures, one urban and one rural, ultimately Country as ‘Bad’ Music,” ethnomusicologist Aaron A. Fox extends embraced its “low-class,” “bad” status as its own. Bad Music for this argument further to argue that country music’s “own poetic Bad People, the title of a 1984 compilation by country-punk band self-regard as a commodity” provides a new way to understand , says it all. Through music, “rednecks” and punks “value in popular musical practice.” Fox points to a long line of alike could demonstrate the merits of their type of “badness.” country songs whose lyrics poetically engage with the genre’s They could wear it, drink it, and listen to it proudly. status as a disposable or culturally undervalued commodity. According to Fox, most critics and writers have typically responded to country music’s history of “badness” in two ways: first, by focusing on country’s real historical whiteness and racism; and second, by glossing over this racist history through elite judgments that attempt to pick the “good” country (like the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack or the PBS documentary American Roots Music) out of the bad (explicitly racist songs by “Outlaw” figures like ). These easy dialectics, Fox argues, ignore the deep complexities—about race and working-class life—found within country songs themselves. He asks instead: “Must ‘badness’ or ‘goodness’ be absolute qualities, assigned to genres or music or particular performers, or is there another possibility?” “Fox locates this alternative possibility by listening closely to country songs and documenting the opinions of Texas country

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It’s tempting to apply Fox’s alchemical argument to country and punk in Gun Outfit’s 2015, but it’s also a bit tricky. Gun Outfit, like most of their DIY peers, don’t make music that fits easily in any genre; their songs are filled with sitars and slide guitars, and beneath their country accents lay hints of Marxist and feminist ideas (on display, for instance, in the feminist film-referencing “Legends of My Own” video). Because they pull ideas from different genres, they create an audience all their own. Of course, punk’s mining of country sounds isn’t all that far off from what happened with punk itself: since it’s beginnings in the ’70s, punk has enjoyed its own transformation from marginal “white trash” to aesthetically canonized, historically valued “good” music. Historians, record collectors, and even fans themselves, who, he argues, turn recorded commercial clothing marketers have all aided in pushing punk culture out of music into a way to build community. They see that music as a the (socially valued, communal) gutter and into the mainstream “debased commodity in search of an alchemical transformation, a marketplace. Most discussion of underground and punk music bending and twisting of the commodified object into a speaking, today centers around its aesthetic rather than its social worth. No feeling subject.” Country fans turn recorded commercial music longer “trash” culture, Fox might argue, punk music doesn’t offer into a way to build community. “White trash” country fans know its audiences the sublime in the way it once did. While today’s DIY their music is bad for them, in other words, and that’s what makes music embraces different styles of hardcore, , metal, it sound and feel so sublimely good. Rather than blindly accept and improvisation, it still hasn’t fully assumed country’s “covert their “bad” racism or listen only to the “good” songs, country fans prestige of badness” into its aesthetic canon. re-value their own culturally debased status as “white trash” by When asked in a recent interview with Noisey if he saw a prizing it. political kinship between punk and country, Dylan Sharp phrased Over the lilting three-chord waltz of a , his response in musical rather than political terms. “I feel punk country fans come together, singing along and crying into their and country are both in frameworks,” he said. “There’s too many beers with each other. In the process, they convert commodified boundaries on them… I like to have a mix where there’s all the “trash” into meaningful human communities. Fox writes: traditional structure but then you put a few things in there that The ultimate transformation of the aren’t in the framework cause then you can have it both ways.” leaden commodity into the gold of (white, Part of what’s so disarming about Gun Outfit’s music is working-class, Southern) identity occurs the way the band tosses around country and punk frameworks in collective rituals of musically mediated in Sharp’s “have-it-both-ways” style, never sounding entirely sociability. In the working-class bars innovative or traditional but rather something in between. “I’m of Texas, these rituals occur nightly, as a stranger,” Carrie Keith croons on “Gotta Wanna,” “getting country music becomes a prime topic stranger still.” The way Keith’s voice hangs over the syllables, of talk, a saturating soundtrack, and a though, suggests that Gun Outfit enjoys their status as outlaws powerful metaphor for the covert prestige and strangers. Their aim may not be to assimilate country into of badness. In the process, country music punk, but instead to open up a new road to take. becomes our music, experienced not as Rather than make punk go country or make country go punk, a pleasurable diversion or a solipsistic they deliberately mess with both genres by living in a kind of exercise in the judgment of aesthetic no-man’s-land between them. “There is an element of mistake worth, but as a brilliant way of re-valuing to Gun Outfit,” Sharp claimed in an interview with The Media: trash, of making the “bad” song, bad “disharmony between music and lyrics, imperfect execution, feelings, and the bad modern (“redneck”) garbled aesthetic presentation.” This imperfect quality to Gun subject not only good, but sublimely good. Outfit’s music may offend country and punk purists, but it’s

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perhaps their own version of re-trashing their music, and creating “good” community through re-valuing “bad” music. After listening to Dream All Over a few times through, it’s hard not to think about what—besides cool sounds—might be lurking behind Keith’s mournful, fluttering cry-breaks on “Blue Hour,” or the interlocking rhythms of “Gotta Wanna,” or Sharp’s low-down delivery on “Matters to Head,” when he gasps: “Oh and I thought I could be healed/ But I only was revealed.” These moments really do sound sublime in the torn-up directness of their misery and abjection, and they steal up on when you least expect it, as if your chair had all the sudden transformed into a jerky, beer-stained mechanical bull. In a 2012 post on his philosophically minded blog, Pigs Meat, Sharp writes of two long days he experienced that year, one filled with fun and the other with work. “Ultimately what’s missing here is interaction,” he claims. “Without a community both creative work and hedonistic activities fall back upon the weak little individual to justify, something he cannot hope to manage on his own.” Like Fox’s take on country music fans’ conversion of trash into gold, Sharp’s argument hinges on community interaction over individual creativity. Unlike Fox, however, Sharp seems unsure if his own trajectory from trashed loneliness to golden community is actually possible. Another post, which narrates his experience of a Gun Outfit show, claims: “The social forms which the ‘successful’ rock participates in are closed. The money earning gig is no different from the cubicle—the range of possible human action is limited, and everyone knows the rules.” While Gun Outfit may be making abjectly sublime music, they style themselves as strangers and outlaws in a punk world which often speaks of good aesthetics instead of meaningful communities. If we care about our own DIY communities in 2015, we might look to Gun Outfit’s “aesthetically garbled” life in between country and punk “trashiness” as a model through which new communities can take seed. New conversations in new spaces can lead to previously unheard of musical combinations, and make legends of their own.

ADHOC #9 28 ADHOC #9 29 GALLEGO ALEX G, RACHEL G

Miguel Gallego talks to Alex G and his sister (and AdHoc “ONE cover artist) Rachel about their respective, and often ASPECT OF intertwining, artistic practices. WHAT’S COOL ABOUT IT”:

Rachel Giannascoli’s paintings have and little obscure, all while remaining graced the cover of Alex G’s various accessible and resonant. In anticipation CONVERSING releases for a few years now. of Alex G’s upcoming record, Beach A photograph of her painting of a nude, Music, “out now via Domino, we winged figure accompanies an early interviewed Alex and Rachel over the record, entitled Paint. The photo, Alex phone. The two talked at length about WITH admits, was taken furtively. It was only making art for oneself, Vincent Van after he had posted the record online Gogh, and the validation that comes that Rachel, his sister, discovered it. when someone responds to something RACHEL AND Her artwork, like his music, is macabre you create the same way you do.

ALEX G MIGUEL GALLEGO Rachel, how long have you been doing artwork for Alex? RACHEL G Well, as long as he’s been puting it out there, he’s been kind of jus using what is around and things that I’ll send him.

ALEX G I would take picures of suf before I would ask Rachel’s permission—I would take a picure of her painting or something.

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RG I think I would see them on the Bandcamp, and I was happy to see it. I wouldn’t be aware of it. AH What was it like watching each other develop as artists? AG I don’t really think about it, I guess. I guess we’ve both been growing. I’ve always felt like I was making the bes shit, and I al- ways thought that she was making the bes shit. I didn’t really realize we were growing.

RG It was nice to have someone to cre- ate around and to encourage each other. And, I don’t know, fantasize with.

AG I probably wouldn’t be making as RG [laughs] Yeah, I had a dream about it. much [without her], because I wouldn’t I was looking at that painting already paint- have thought it was cool if Rachel didn’t ed, and it was something I jus thought was think it was cool. so awesome. I thought, “This is it.” AH Alex, what was your thought process RG And I was always definitely really when you heard about the idea? How into what he was making. Even when he did you decide it should be the cover? was seven. Whenever he started creating, AG I thought it was awesome. I thought I was always genuinely interested and it was a great idea. I’m kind of biased, I excited about it. guess. I think whatever Rachel tells me is a great idea. I sand by it. I think it’s a sick AG Vise versa, I guess. painting and it looks amazing. AH Was DSU the firs record that AH What’s the sory behind the art- you made art secifically for? work for the upcoming record? RG Kind of. I had mentioned a painting RG I guess the overall theme is compas- that I had an idea for and Alex said, “I sion. But that basically is what the album want to use that as an album cover.” So is about. I hate to put too many words to it, he actually encouraged me to paint it because I think it takes away from it. faster than I would have gotten it done. AH What was your reacion But I never actually painted something when you saw it, Alex? for an album. It just works. Because we’re AG I jus thought it looked like a beautiful similar, in ways. painting. I wanted to use it because I was AH What was the idea be- so impressed by it. hind that painting? RG It’s a feeling, basically. I was trying to RG He had sent me the new album and paint a feeling, but that feeling is open to had asked if I would do a cover for it, and the viewer. that was the painting I was working on, so it seemed appropriate. AG Didn’t you have a dream about it? AH So creating things has always When you were looking at an art gallery? been a big thing in your family, right?

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AG I think we were exposed to a lot of music and art and suf.

RG Like fine art. My mom went to school for painting. So she did art in the classroom acually, when I was younger. And she would bring in a poser of a painting by a maser artis and then talk about it and teach the class about it. And then had a contes we would do. She was very helpful in that way. AH Can you think of any artis that has been really generative for you? RG A prety popular one: Van Gogh. I could feel his work. Personally, it jus has a lot of sirit that jumps out, like you know him. It’s a lot of himself. And that was always something that I appreciated over anything else. AG I think I [make art] because I don’t AH That expressiveness. know what else to do. It’s jus what I do. RG Yeah. It feels very transcendent. You live through it, as far as the painting goes. RG It gives back to you. It feeds you, in a way. It gives back. There’s a nice relation- AG I was drawn to Van Gogh too. I got a ship you have with it. biography on him. I thought he was so cool. AH Was there anything in that biog- AG Yeah, exacly. I do it because I think I raphy that really suck out to you? kind of identify myself with it. If I didn’t do AG I think he was an extremely passion- it I would be confused or something. Does ate person. He lived to make the bes art, that make sense? according to his biographer. I didn’t know him. The picure he painted in his book is RG Creating helps you get to know your- that Van Gogh was throwing himself in dif- self too. And I think that’s important. It’s ferent cities and diferent situations for his not necessarily creating for all people, but art. It was almos like his religion. I thought it’s good to have something that you do that was cool. I think he kind of sacrificed that you like to engage in yourself. himself a litle to make his art. And it didn’t bring him any satus, but what matered AG I agree...It’s creating this piece of was that he was making the art that he was yourself for other people. You make the mos moved by. cooles mos presentable thing and some- one else can see it like that. I’m kind of RG It’s a devotion. making suf up, but that seems right. AH Is that devotion something that AH You make things for the love y’all try to tap into in your art? of making them, but where does RG I think that it is something showing it to others fit in? I try to tap into, yes. I’m not RG It’s exciting if people resonate with it. claiming to have! But I try to. Very exciting.

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AG I think when making a song, it’s not at the forefront of my brain. I’m not like, “Okay, i’m gonna show this to someone else.” But I think that mus be why I do it. The same way when people dress really well, or something. That mus be why I want to make suf. I think that’s my method of geting my way across to other people. Because I feel really comfortable making music. It doesn’t make sense to express yourself if no one’s going to hear what you’re doing or see what you’re doing. AH What draws you to some of the themes and imagery that you use in your art, Rachel? RG It’s probably my personality. [Laughs]I love what color can do visually RG Absolutely! Connecing! To say true for people. How it affects us. Color is to your feelings and have others connec is the primary thing I pay attention to. And a beautiful thing. the imagery? I’m interested in symbols. AH I guess that comes back to the There’s a lot of symbolism in it. transcendence. Communicating AH Colors can evoke feelings without without words. puting pressure on you to name them. RG Some people are really RG Yes, absolutely. Color can insantly do good with words. things to you. AG [Laughs] That’s not us one bit. AG I agree with Rachel. I think it’s something that affects me, but RG It’s a language that everybody under- I’m not conscious of it in the same sands. Hopefully in that way [art] unites. way she is. Because, I don’t really That’s one asec of what’s cool about it. stop to think about that. I think it AH Did the title of the new record, definitely has an effect on me. Beach Music, have something AH Do you think take a similar to do with the artwork? approach to evoking feelings AG No, I came up with the title before in your music? the artwork came out. I thought it sound- AG I think I have the same approach, not ed cool. It’s funny, because I told people with colors, but with sound and music. I about that title, and they were like, “Oh, know a certain thing affects me when I’m that’s funny.” But I didn’t think it was a joke. making it, and a lot of times I can’t put a I jus thought it sounded it cool. I found a finger on it, but I know what I’m trying to book or movie called Beach Music and I get across. But I know that I can’t exactly really liked the way it sounded. So it’s jus a put a name on this feeling. meaningless thing that I found. AH So it feels validating when peo- ple feel something similar? AG Exacly.

ADHOC #9 36 ADHOC #9 37 TABS OUT WHO HAS TAPES ANYMORE? No22

In the twenty-second edition of Who Has Tapes Anymore, the folks WHO HAS at Tabs Out recommend recent cassette releases for those who either collect the shit out of them, TAPES or are willing to procure some. ANYMORE?

Psychic Mold NO 22 Carrion Crawler [Magic Blood Tapes]

I think it’s safe to say that the outsider music scene that we now call home once seemed pretty intimidating. But if you’re reading this, you also know that you get a buzz from being puzzled and down- right disoriented. As soon as you get a handle on things and your brain-dust settles, you’re back where you started, diving deeper and deeper, trying your damnedest to rattle up those ol’ dust bunnies. Well here’s your latest thrill, bucko: Psychic Mold’s Carrion Crawler is a full-frontal shape-shifting trash com- pactor in the best sense of the term. Much like the killer every- thing-at-once cover art, nothing about this tape is simple or subtle. Both sides hinge on lots of sounds and mega-bold shifts, varying only in the direction from which you’re being pummeled, announced by a cartoonish SPLAT so forceful that you’ll be wiping goo out of your earholes until at least Christmas. It’s a thrill for sure, but you’d better enjoy it while it lasts, because you’re gonna be gettin’ off on some bizarre shit once Carrion Crawler becomes your lazy Sunday soundtrack.

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Seth Chrisman & Nathan McLaughlin The Gate Andreas Brandal Pursed Olivebridge Chuck Murmurs and Echos No Plot [Editions Littlefield] [Astral Spirits] [Field Hymns] [COUNTRYm]

The screeching call of an ea- This surprising trio of tuba, electric The opening ringing of electric There is some heavy mood-smushing gle is the first sound to flow through upright bass, and percussion—played organ feels like the beginnings of a going on with No Plot, and it makes the the listeners’ ears as they hit play by Dick Peck, Tom Blancarte, and Brian Norwegian video on bike safety. entire tape extremely gratifying. Each on “Olivebridge” from Seth Chrisman Osborne, respectively—somehow comes The growing cello and violin-like sounds song is a little hand-molded adventure, and Nathan McLaughlin on Editions off natural. But that makes sense when hint at darker forces at play, resonant an opportunity to forfeit yourself to a mi- Littlefield (a sister label to Full Spectrum). considering the resonant capabilities of filter sweeps bursting along the crest rage-like blend of dank rhythms, gratifying Crack this one open and it smells like both tonal instruments and their common of sweeping crescendos. Andreas melodies, and stretches of deep drones. a pine forest. Similar in spirit to 2014’s tethering to percussion and rhythmic Brandal’s Murmurs and Echoes is an It’s like everything becomes the bottom “Louella”—featuring Chrisman paired structure. The Gate start off full force on intriguing blend of many influences: prog, line of an eye exam chart. Wet percussion with Full Spectrum label head Andrew “Demon Loaf,” with low, rumbling waves , ambient, western, goth- chugs along, flexible blowouts of elec- Weathers—“Olivebridge” sees Chrisman of staccato attacks and wails. But the ic, and traditional folk, with touches of tronics plod through. It’s romance music pairing his methodically crafted drone players’ chemistry really shines through Gregorian chant-inflected vocals mixed for a very complicated romance. Vibrant with the sweet reverence of McLaughlin’s in moments where the trio spreads in. All of that with interwoven patches melancholy for the yearning outsider. acoustic guitar, swirling the two togeth- out. Plucks and ticks lay beside breathy of field recording samples, archival er into a blend of radiant exuberance. whispers of muted silence. On the b-side, news footage, blasts of textured noise, Moving at the speed of a slow sunrise, “The Huldrefish” swims through layers and sections of thoughtful drone. the duo drift through hazes of melan- of complex interplay between all three. It’s a lot to take in at once, but it’s ut- choly and longing on the second track, Equal parts glowing and growling, terly impossible to turn away. The crafts- appropriately titled “II.” Cyclical patches Peck throws walls of distorted phrases on manship of the instrumentation is excel- of fingerpicked guitar blend into room top of Blancarte’s prickly machine gun at- lent: glass shards form the backbone for a tonalities and micro-percussive struc- tack. Anchoring them to a four-dimension- percussive line; clear strings distort under tures. Track three which is titled “III,” is al space, Osborne moves with intriguing the weight of intense filter cutoff. The the real standout, however. The melodic timing, adding space with texture. Brilliant atmosphere here is well defined and yet elements hit a bit deeper, and finely release from a label known for putting still undefinable. One of the year’s best. paced washes of shifting major drone out consistent quality. Don’t miss it. timbres blend perfectly into sub-atom- ic touches of texture and ambiance.

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African Ghost Valley Cher Von Khaki Blazer Wyatt Howland & David Russell ARA Kuhh Duuh Moontan Nocturnal White Cassette [Hylé] [Auralgami Sounds] [Hausu Mountain] [Polar Envy]

African Ghost Valley’s ARA cassette Cher Von’s main instrument on Kuhh Listen, man. Unless you’re ready to Cleveland pyschos Wyatt Howland can easily make the listener feel cornered Duuh is her voice—and its range is a get weird, and I mean weird-weird, then (Skin Graft) and David Russell team up and cemented in place. It’s light-years rainbow, each track speckled with various don’t fuck with Khaki Blazer. You just for a violent stampeed of damaged noise. away from an aggressive recording, shades of captivating vocal maneuvers. keep listening to whatever fake-fringe It’s like someone opened up the kitchen instead relying on a cold, calculated Whether they be quirky, cartoonish coos shit you got out of the vending machine cabinets and pots, pans, and snakes assortment of looming motifs to make or swirling mutterings light enough to and chill. But if you’re committed to came pouring out for a comical length of the listener feel snug and warm before catch a ride on a leaf in the breeze—or this... If you are truly prepared to wake time. Come for the convulsion of loops realizing he may never leave. Coils of rasping yaps, or saliva-tinged uvular up at a kid’s birthday party covered in and caustic feedback, stay for the insane coercive pulses, spliced field record- trills—all the vocal turns are fully realized cake frosting all like, “Who the fuck is laser etching of Howland and Russell’s ings, and vocal meditations linger thick. as captivating pop-folk monuments. Her Conner?,” then hop into the Moontan mugs on the O-card. This is, in pretty Crafty synth jolts with a sheen of radiation chants and idiosyncratic stammers swirl Nocturnal mobile, and let’s floor it. much every way, an impressive cassette. gleam through opaque audio workings around the clever tinkering of objects, Khaki Blazer is the solo project of to complete the ominous condition. conjuring up scenes of dreamy woodland Pat Modugno from Moth Cock. Modugno creatures building castles in the trees. funnels inspiration from a cluster of Cher Von (real name: Chervon Koeune, genres, never getting comfortable with from Louisville, KY) shows off some savvy any of them. He takes pixels of chip and talent on these songs that is truly up- tune pulsations, hip-hop samples, vocal lifting. Please check out Kuhh Duuh. Duh. oddities, and anything he can get his hands on and advances into a spiral of looping confusion. His finished works are beyond ADD. The springing from circuit-bent versions of Windows 95 to acid-dosed Mario Paint portraits to Tiger Electronics handheld games running on car batteries won’t be solved by legis- lation or medication. So just deal, kid.

ADHOC #9 42 ADHOC #9 43 BROWN KODE9

DeForrest Brown, Jr. speaks with Kode9 ZERO about the processes and implications behind his new album, Nothing. The London-based electronic music producer, DJ, and label owner Steve Goodman, a.k.a. WORK Kode9, has built a career on encountering music as though it were a physical force—an object infused with amassed data and the contingencies of its entering into various sonic and intellectual situations. OUTRUNS His label, which fills out and defines his musical and tangential theoretical interests, is now ten years in age, surrounding Goodman with a revolv- ing cadre of musicians and thinkers from disparate US genres and geographical locations. Spreading out more and more beyond his initial focus on , Goodman’s label, as well as his own output, offers an ever-changing, sharpening view of today’s musical ALL: and technological landscapes. From Senegal-born, -based Fatima Al Qadiri’s excursions into appropriation and doomed civilizations; to Michigan- born, Berlin-based Laurel Halo’s manipulation of AN techno’s mechanistic take on temporal form; to vari- ous Chicago- and elsewhere-based Teklife affiliates bringing their own brand of street-style , Goodman has built a label that reflects music’s ability INTERVIEW to give life to one’s experience, be it through the ba- nal rituals of daily life or grand philosophical gestures. On Nothing, Goodman’s fourth release as a producer, we see him using cold synth work, circular WITH juke percussion, and dry, reverb-free production to explore voids, zeroes, and the capacity to be productive while at rest. In the following discussion, Goodman meanders through subjects related to KODE9 and beyond Nothing—a multiplicitous concept that houses both philosophical and religious meaning. He also explains how he used production as way to cope and recover from the loss of his dear friends DJ Rashad and , both of whom passed away in 2014 and the latter of whom has a co-credit on each of Kode9’s previous albums. We discuss music—its labor and inspiration—as a means of extending the material idea of one’s emotional state and artistic intentions. For Goodman, Nothing and its integer of zero is not empty, but a point of beginnings.

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music. I also knew that this album would be emp- ty to me, because there would be no Spaceape. I finished the record in January, but I spent the next few months tweaking and refining, and during that process I started reading about noth- ing, voids, vacuums, emptiness… I read this book called Zero Living, which is about the history of zero and mathematics. There wasn’t the number zero. It didn’t exist in Western science or mathematics until the Renaissance. It came from Babylonia, it came from Indian mathematics; different aspects of it came from different places. The West always saw it as demonic. It’s like an agent of seculariza- tion. The reason zero was such a threat is because it is at the limits of knowledge. There are all of these tendencies towards zero: science has the degree zero, the freezing point of matter… Obviously all science was doing in the last few hundred years was undermining God—chipping out, keeping away the foundations that hold up monotheism. And I was like, “Oh, shit! Nothing is something.” Nothing is much more complicated than I was thinking. In Quantum theory, vacuums are not empty. You ADHOC I suppose we should have invisible photonic energy, and energy that’s start with the idea of nothing. hard to identify but is still very active, kind of like STEVE GOODMAN So I started the record on the dark matter, black holes. Energy can pull something 31st of December, New Year’s Eve last year, and I into a wormhole and destroy it. And I’ve always been had a bunch of music that I had scrapped. There’s so interested in zero as being full. Nothing is something. many reasons why it’s called Nothing. The first one AH It’s interesting that you is… last year was very intense for me. I was very angry mention zero in the sense of and pissed off last year, and I was asking myself, calamity, or an end for humans. “What is the album even about?” And the way I was There’s the suggestion of at the end of last year, it wasn’t easy to put anything freezing points and all of into words, so it’s called “Nothing.” Nothing was this these things that sound like key that enabled me to hang on. I can make tracks, the Day After Tomorrow. but I can’t bring it together into an album unless SG Since I started the album, I’ve been attacked by there’s a concept. It doesn’t matter what the concept what’s call a “zero virus.” Having come outside of the is—sometimes it’s just a word, a phrase, an idea, an idea of nothing as an empty, or anti-, concept allowed image. The way I was at the end of last year, it was me to make music without too much baggage, in a enough to have a concept that was completely empty more democratic way. Very quickly, I started seeing as a starting point. It produced a sort of umbrella zeroes everywhere. I just started to realize how often that contained all the different song ideas. And it zero is used in phrases: ground zero, year zero. The worked because I was jamming super fast in a way former is usually the end, and the latter a beginning. that I had never made music before. Emptiness as AH I suppose those could a concept really made this normal baggage into the be the same thing.

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on the] inaction of doing nothing—not in a nega- tive sense, but as a way to do things in the most efficient way. You want to follow the grain of matter. It’s a tangential process. In other con- texts, people may call it “flow” or “oneness.” AH It makes me think of Maya Deren’s Ritual in Transfigured Time, where she explores the ritual of dance.

SG Purely through following rules, you can activate something. AH I hear that in a lot in the sounds that you use on the SG Yes, different different sides of the same thing. record, actually. Nothing And in economics, I was coming across phrases feels really ecological... like “zero marginal cost,” which are ways to deal SG This process started with a concept. It didn’t with an information economy where the cost of come from nothing, and for me that’s an import- manufacturing something tends towards zero, ant distinction. I can only finish a record with a like the replication of MP3s. It doesn’t cost any- concept; I just need something in the end to glue thing to reproduce an infinite amount of MP3s. it all together. You have to sequence the tracks, Then there’s “zero work,” which is this old know how they relate to each other… sprinkle Italian economist’s idea that if machines are doing cosmic dust over it to give it a façade of unity. all the work and the enterprise is purely profit-driv- AH What exactly is the en, then there is no reason for us to be threat- “façade of unity”? I suppose ened by the idea of machines making humans that edges into the idea redundant. All it does is open up a pile of free time of person ecology, the for humans to do something else. So that’s obvi- “engineered situation.” ously what we should be pursuing at this point. SG All of the albums I’ve made are just making The problem with old Leftist movements is that tracks. You’re constantly selecting through a group they make this big issue out of the dignity of labor. of material. And I always find that towards the end Fuck that! We shouldn’t be working, we should be of an album, I get in involved in making this “façade opening up as much free time as possible. The of unity.” It might be a finish, it might be a sheen. It idea of zero work is often looked down upon, like might be a textural thing that goes over the surface. humans are being lazy. But what I realized while For , it’s crackle that provides the “façade making this album is that doing nothing is a fun- of unity.” He always talks about crackle being a damental part of the research and production. way to paint over the cracks, to hide the ugliness. I AH It’s a very larval state. don’t use crackle, but on this album, for me it was It’s an interesting thing to this weird quantum spark. Those kinds of synth do nothing and come to this sounds. Threads that you find running through laptop, to all of this hardware— accidentally. I don’t know why, but with this album it’s very cybernetic or circular I did this kind of bombastic sound that’s later a in thought and approach. snarl that runs through the “Notel” track. It’s like SG That’s why one of the tracks is called “Wu this snarling pitched-down horn and cello. It’s like Wei,” which is actually this [Taoist concept based a scream from your stomach: a geological drone.

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SG I noticed that it had that thread that SG Exactly. Black music isn’t just a presentation of I didn’t intend; I didn’t deliberately take the streets or the soul. And while people always talk that sound and use it in other tracks. What about the club, the ghetto, and the street in relation it did was create an internal thread. to juke… All of this is true, but it’s also doing some- AH The soul. thing much more interesting, which is upgrading SG Even the anti-soul. It’s a quite inhuman sound. the human organ, which is much more serious! AH You keep coming up with these fascinating phrases, like “geological drone.” That immediately takes me back to [Goodman’s 2010 book] Sonic Warfare. Where does that come from? SG It’s in the album because I was angry and pissed off. Somehow that deep, high bass sound embodied the anger, and was very cathartic for me. Ultimately, it was my way of saying “Fuck you” to the world. I put myself in solitary confinement to make the album. I made lots of music, but the tracks with that sound stayed with me. It’s more than just a personal groan; it’s a cosmic one. AH Your use of juke is very fascinating to me as well. It seems to function as a means of linking together these hauntological sounds. SG There’s nothing consciously hauntological about what I was doing, but there’s an aspect of Spaceape haunting the album. I deliberately didn’t use delay on the album, though; I wanted to do something I’d never done before. Reverb and delay are often used to create a “façade of unity.” Sometimes I get tired of the clichés… I wanted a much drier album. I was trying to make this kind of airless vacuum space, make it a bit more air- tight. It’s deliberately architecturally sterile. I see footwork in a similar way to how I saw jungle. It’s a sort of anti-gravity device. If you just watch footwork dancers as they go on, their limbs are trying to escape off in different directions. Like jungle, because of speed and polyrhythmic density, there’s the potential to rewire the way people move. Both are engines for upgrading human organs. AH Footwork as how we became posthuman.

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Emilie Friedlander cofounded AdHoc with Ric Leichtung in 2012. She currently works as the editor-in-chief of VICE's electronic music vertical, THUMP; previously, she played in the band La Big Vic and worked as a features editor at The FADER.

A founding member of the Free Society Underground (HFSU), Michael Blair lives on Judge.

Miguel Gallego is a writer and musician living in the New York area.

DeForrest Brown Jr. is a - based essayist and music critic who has published in Resident Advisor, Rhizome, the Quietus, Swiss print publication Zweikommasieben, Tiny Mix Tapes, and Music and Literature. He has also worked for Triple Canopy and XLR8R.

Tabs Out is the world’s oldest and most beloved and probably coolest cassette- centric podcast in existence. Their website was named one of AARPS’s “Top Pages On The Net” in 1997 and 2003, calling it “Crackerjack” and “A must surf.”

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