Those Darn Gnomes - Nightmares and sounds from the fucking inferno

In the realm of noisy, metallic and extreme music, America's Those Darn Gnomes have established themselves as one of the most fascinating outfits of the past year. Positively struck by “Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow”, their most mature record to date, we got in touch with Christian Molenaar and asked him to reveal some of the secrets behind their sound, which the band's own leader has compared to what you might hear lurking within the “fucking inferno”… 

So, you're from San Diego…

Yes, though we "flirted" with Los Angeles for a while, back when we had a saxophonist living in Pasadena. Still, our home base has always been San Diego.

You started out with a kind of avant-garde metal (“The Years”), later branching into noise-rock and other experimental territory (“The Zodiac”), passing through the deathgrind of the Ep “Peeling” and “All Tiny Breasts Crushed Beneath The Shadow”, and arriving, finally, at your most mature record to date, “Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow”. Have you finally found your path, or are you still searching?

Our sound is constantly evolving. Every album represents a different era of the band, and just as we've grown as musicians, our music has developed alongside us. "The Years" was written right after I finished high school, and even though it already contained the basic elements of our sound (free improvisation and dense thematic development), I think "The Zodiac" was really when we started building something concrete on those foundations. Either way, "Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow" definitely represents a new maturity and clarity of purpose in the songwriting, and it's much more indicative of where we're headed. Since we finished that album we've entered a frenzied recording phase, and as we work on other new pieces, the vision of what lies ahead keeps becoming clearer. In 2020 we'll be releasing a few things in shorter formats while we finish our next album, and I think each of them, as the music gets refined, marks a step forward along an easily traceable musical path.

The music on "Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow" draws from many different things. Was that a premeditated choice, or did you just let yourselves be carried by whatever inspiration struck in the moment?

Inspiration comes from many sources. Still, I try to stay true to myself and to my compositional goals. I like listening to a wide range of music and letting it inspire my work, but when I actually write I try not to channel any specific inspiration - I don't think "here's a metal riff, here's a folk part" or anything like that. I just let the music flow naturally, seeing where it takes me as I develop a central idea, putting it through plenty of permutations and variations so that the finished piece ends up feeding more on itself than on any outside influence.

Is there a concept behind "Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow"?

Yes! "Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow" was heavily inspired by the writings of Eugene Thacker and Thomas Ligotti, and by Mark Z. Danielewski's novel "House of Leaves". I'm drawn to the theme of an unfeeling, indifferent universe as depicted in the former's work, and to how that collides with the lives of real (imaginary) people in Danielewski's book. I won't go into too much detail here, since I don't want to give too much away and the very shape of the album makes it hard to explain anyway, but there's definitely a clear theme running through these songs, even if I wouldn't call it a traditional "concept album".

The album cover is really striking and, to me, perfectly embodies the essence of your music. Who made it?

All the artwork for "Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow" is the work of my good friend Robert Khasho, an incredibly talented artist from Portland, Oregon. His surreal work, inspired by Jodorowsky, felt perfect for the album's themes, tied as they are to a cosmic-horror, psychedelic imagery. If you like his artwork, I'd definitely recommend following him on Instagram @robertkhasho.

Which bands and artists have inspired you the most?

Early on, what inspired me most in writing material for Those Darn Gnomes was the more avant-garde side of extreme metal, bands like Kayo Dot, Gorguts and Today Is The Day. Of course, over time all the other music I love ended up shaping our sound too. If I had to name some of my most important musical influences, I'd mention Shudder To Think, Khanate, Prince, Scott Walker, Bach, Ehnahre and Krallice.

The dominant form of "The Zodiac" was inspired by George Crumb's "Makrokosmos" and by the arch form used by Bartók. Much of the content was inspired by Memphis rap (particularly Three 6 Mafia and Gangsta Pat's "Deadly Verses"), and by brutal death-metal and 90s post-hardcore bands like Defeated Sanity. Specifically, some of the albums I was listening to at the time in search of inspiration include Mary Lou Williams' "Black Christ Of The Andes", Blut Aus Nord's "MoRT", Jeff Buckley's "Grace", Chris Isaak's "Heart-Shaped World", and the Mermen's "A Glorious Lethal Euphoria".

"Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow" was mostly inspired by listening to Stockhausen and old alt-metal bands like Living Colour and Jane's Addiction. Bon Iver's "22, A Million", Burial Hex's "The Hierophant", and Ulver's "Messe I.X-VI.X" were all in heavy rotation while we worked on that album.

Are your influences purely musical, or do they also come from other art forms?

These days, I'm more likely to be influenced by things outside of music. Film and literature have always been a big part of what we do. To give an example, the title of "The Years" comes from Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "The Years of Rice and Salt", while the track "Seinfeld" from "The Zodiac" was inspired by the film "Radiant City" (by Gary Burns and Jim Brown, ed.). "Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow" was heavily influenced by the film "The Deer Hunter" (by Michael Cimino, ed.), and its basic idea grew out of a VHS tape I found after my house was broken into. The way directors like David Lynch and Charlie Kaufman articulate thematic abstraction has a huge influence on how I tie together our musical and lyrical ideas. Our next album owes a lot to Reza Negarestani's book "Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials" and to James Hampton's piece "Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly".

Let's dig a bit deeper into "The Deer Hunter". And also: what was so interesting about that VHS tape?

Early on in the writing of "Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow" (before it even had a title or a concept), my house was broken into. I came home from work and found the front door wide open. Whoever had gotten in, though, hadn't taken anything with them. Instead, they'd left behind a VHS tape with a label reading "Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow". The tape held an hour-long video collage made up of footage of hunters armed with bows, catching and skinning deer. The video left a strong impression on me, and the surreal, unsettling nature of the whole event left a clear mark on our music, which tries to be both surreal and unsettling in equal measure.

As for “The Deer Hunter”, it's been my favorite film for a long time, and the “Calling Whitetails” tape pushed me to watch it again. It's a brutal film: it opens with beautiful portraits of the main characters and their lives in a small Pennsylvania town, culminating in a group hunting trip, before the setting shifts to Vietnam, where the protagonists have in the meantime been sent. At that point, the film zeroes in on a horrific torture scene. “The Deer Hunter” touches on many themes that, directly or indirectly, I try to channel into my own work, and it communicates them in a violent, even sadistic way that I find stimulating. It's certainly not a perfect film: it's problematic in many respects, but I find it has an incredible staying power, even years after the first time I saw it.

How important is improvisation in your music?

Improvisation is a fundamental element of our music. I write every part of our music, but it's very important to me to preserve communication within the dynamics of the group, allowing for moments of absolute spontaneity. I think of music as a very direct way to communicate emotions; unlike film, poetry or visual art, which necessarily have to exist within predefined dimensions like words or images, music lets its creator abstract ideas beyond any language. That's why it matters to me that my music allows each musician to step forward and communicate with the rest of the group. We try to reach the ecstatic vertigo described by Bataille and to experience the corroborating horror of eroticism through moments of transcendent rapture. There's a kind of ascending, mystical euphoria that can only be reached through totally open communication, one that occurs at the intersection of tightly rehearsed, rigidly composed music and sublime improvisation.

From time to time – I'm thinking of the “Peeling” EP and “All Tiny Breasts Crushed Beneath The Shadow” – you veer into deathgrind territory. Is that a way of venting your wildest instincts, or does that choice reflect one of your deepest passions?

I think both EPs represent a more “instinctive” approach to our sound. “Peeling” was recorded during the sessions for “The Zodiac” as a way to find an outlet from the more complex material we were recording for that album. Unlike the densely layered material on “The Zodiac”, “Peeling” was improvised around a simple five-note motif that was then put through many transformations and variations. Similarly, “All Tiny Breasts Crushed Beneath The Shadow” came about as a reaction to the complexity of “Calling Whitetails To A Tuned Bow”. The latter took over two years to complete and is certainly home to our densest, most elaborate material, so it felt natural for us to move away from it with something much shorter and freer. We have other material along these lines already ready to be released, but I think our discography is broad enough that no single work of ours should be labeled as fully representative of “our sound”.

The band's lineup has changed several times over the years…

Yes, although you can pick out fairly distinct periods. From “The Years” up through “Calling Whitetails A Tuned Bow” we were a pretty stable four-piece, then our drummer and our singer both left. We brought in Noah Souza on sax and occasionally guitar, but then he left too, to study. Up until recently there was a lot of coming and going with drummers, then Alex Simsay, already a bandmate of mine in Fadrait, finally joined. For the foreseeable future we'll keep playing as a power trio.

Looking at some photos, your shows seem pretty wild…

Oh yes, our shows can get pretty wild. I grew up going to a lot of hardcore shows, and audience participation matters a lot to me. Ideally, I like the performance to mirror the extraordinary intensity of the music, so as to reach a kind of physical volume. I want the spirit of the music to fill the space we're playing in, so that the audience can't help but take part. There have been a few mishaps – broken ribs, wrecked instruments, trashed venues – but I definitely prefer that to mediocrity and indifference.

California's experimental rock scene has a glorious tradition. Do you feel part of it?

We're very lucky to feel at home in California and to have the chance to play alongside a lot of local legends like Bastard Noise and Amps for Christ. Every corner of the state is full of talented artists: throughout Southern California and the Inland Empire there are bands like Sprain, Pure Shit, Rat God, JC Meyer, Endometrium Cuntplow, Christian Lovers, In the Womb, Dendera Bloodbathe and many others; moving up to Northern California, there's Car Made of Glass and Potion, plus a very active scene in Sacramento that includes, among others, Holiday Special, Chopstick and Instagon (along with many others revolving around the NorCal NoiseFest); and of course we can't forget the Bay Area, which is full of talented artists like Malocculsion, Headboggle, Warrior Apprentice, Pandiscordian Necrogenesis and Tyler Holmes.

Are there other bands from the San Diego scene you'd like to point out?

San Diego is full of great bands and artists, but to name a few, I'd say: Year of the Dead Bird, Necking, Tall Can, ALX, Secret Fun Club, Sister Schools, INUS, Dr3ambr05, Pruitt Igoe, Perpetrator, Blood Ponies, SOLV, Monochromacy, Plunger, Rivalry, Peymaar, Bae Window, Ingonoir & Snapghost and many more! The scene here is incredibly vibrant, with so many unknown bands just waiting to get the recognition they deserve!

What are the ten records of 2019 that impressed you the most?

This year has been quite demanding in my personal life, so I haven't been able to keep up with a lot of new releases. That said, some of my favorites include:

Azar Swan – The Hissing Of A Paper Crane

Primeval Well – Primeval Well

Vinny Golia/Steuart Liebig/Nathan Hubbard – Next Outpost

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Bandana

Endon – Boy Meets Girl

Oort Smog – Smeared Pulse Transfers

Feast of the Epiphany – Practicing Loss

Car Made of Glass – Every Song Is A Good Song

The Holy Circle – Sick With Love

All Your Sisters – Trust Ruins

Among others, I would also include the new albums by Denzel Curry, Drowse and The Sorcerer Family.

These days, it's become fashionable to make lists of the most important albums of the last decade. Would you like to play along? 

A decade is a long stretch, but my favorites would definitely include Gorguts' “Colored Sands”, Cleric's “Regressions”, Matana Roberts's “Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres”, Scott Walker's “Bish Bosch” and “Soused”, Ehnahre's “Douve”, Among the Rocks and Roots's “Raga”, Westside Gunn's “Supreme Blientele”, Bon Iver's “22, A Million”, Bjork's “Vulnicura” and “Utopia”, Burial Hex's “The Hierophant”, and Krallice's “Ygg huur”, “Prelapsarian” and “Years Past Matter”.

What should we expect from your next album?

Our next album will be called “E”. All the musical material has been structured and some of it has even been recorded, but overall the album is only part of a bigger project that will take more time to complete. I don't want to give away too much too soon, but I feel this is the most compelling material I've ever written and, at the same time, the most cohesive, expansive and brazen, since, while it draws on and synthesizes a vast range of musical traditions, it also strikes out toward new horizons. In case you hadn't already guessed, I'm very excited to finish it! In the meantime, we have a series of stopgap releases planned, including several EPs, splits with Car Made of Glass and Potion, and records born of collaborations with our friends Willowbrook, Lucas Broyles, Gridfailure and Warrior Smile. Over the past year we've recorded a lot of material I'm really proud of, and I can't wait for it to come out, so you won't have to worry about not hearing from us.

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