Gryphon Rue: “I can be impatient with gear that is too complicated and not fun - like the Octatrack MKII, which is breeding dust in my studio”

Gryphon Rue’s music isn’t easy to categorise; one moment he’ll be thrashing out Krautrock-esque drum grooves, and the next he’s warping the sounds of his own stomach into abrasive electroacoustic noise. 

If there’s one thread running through his diverse catalogue, it’s a commitment to experimentation and a willingness to plunge into the unknown, taking the listener along for the ride. 

A multi-disciplinary artist, composer and musician based in New York, Rue has released music on a variety of cultish imprints that includes Not Not Fun and Astral Editions. He describes his latest project, 4n_Objx, as “more diverse” than anything he’s done before; where previous albums such as 2022’s A Spirit Appears to a Pair of Lovers stretched out towering synth drones into the cosmos, 4n_Objx brings us back down to earth with the intoxicating pulse of Rue’s sequencers and drum machines. 

It’s an eclectic project, consistently dodging expectations throughout its ten tracks; High Priestess recalls the frenetic, oddball dance music of James Holden, before we’re thrown into a disorienting spiral on Dividend, which sounds like a piano reflected through a funhouse mirror. 

Alluvials crashes field recordings up against hypnotic arpeggios, while World’s Fastest Talking Man moulds recordings of Rue’s father’s voice into a gibbering accompaniment for a cascading ensemble of synthesizers. 4n_Objx is an unapologetically strange record, and all the better for it. 

We caught up with Gryphon Rue to find out more about the making of his latest project...

When did you start making music, and how did you first get started? 

“At 13 I started recording in my mom’s basement, simply using the mic on a laptop with Garageband. I was basically thrashing around and doing skits. I had enough privacy to  experiment, I was an only child. I sang and played guitar, and then got into drums and electric bass. I placed importance on lyrics from the start. “And the recent / memory changes / left the  last thought hanging / from the drop of a dimple.” 

“Sometimes it was psychedelic but it could be spare, folky. I was a huge fan of Beck and Elliot Smith. We lived in Willow, NY, and later I found out we were neighbors of Carla Bley and Jack DeJohnette. There were local musicians to study with – I took banjo lessons from Bill Keith and drum lessons from Eric Parker. I had an excellent mentor named Jason Rabinowitz. My stepdad Sam Hood had worked in the music business, at Max’s Kansas City and The Gaslight Café. He encouraged me. 

“In high school I went to a socialist farm school, The Putney School in Vermont. I was given a room to record in, the administration turned a blind eye. I recorded albums for school projects because we did not have final exams. Nearby in Brattleboro there was a “folk-punk” scene at the Tinderbox, and on school breaks I participated in the LES “anti-folk” scene at the Sidewalk Café.”

Tell us about your studio/set-up.

“For almost a year I’ve worked in a split-level studio in High Falls, NY at a former bungalow colony. It’s a magical environment. I have a small variety of keyboard instruments: Roland Jupiter-6, Farfisa Compact FAST 2, Bina harmonium, and a Mellotron Micro. I mainly use GRM plugins. I usually record with Peluso 2247 SEs or M88 mics, through an Allen & Heath ZED-10 mixer, into an Apollo Twin MK2. My monitors are PM-6 Bag Ends, and I use Genelec 8130As and ATH-R70x headphones. I mix as I record, constantly finessing. Mixing is a creative act inseparable from layering sound - panning is underrated. 

“The objects on my desk: a small chain of Dixie, Intellijel, and Doepfer modular synths. Chase Bliss Mood, Strymon Big Sky and El Capistan, and Boomerang phrase sampler pedals.  There’s a Tascam Portastudio 424. I’ll fill up a side of a cassette, leave it running and leave  the house. When I record electric guitar I use a Fender Tremolux. 

“At a later stage I work with Nicholas Principe (Port St. Willow) for pre-mastering. We run my stems through treatments. At some point I should get a patch bay and graduate to a more elaborate set-up, but this approach has worked for me so far. I wanted to finally use physical faders for mixing so I got an Avid S3, but I got frustrated setting it up so it’s in the corner. I can be impatient with gear that is too complicated and not fun, like the Octatrack MKII, which is breeding dust.”

What DAW (or DAWs) do you use, and why did you choose it?

“I record with Pro Tools, which I started using in undergrad. I don’t record with sequencers and I often don’t use a click track. I use it as an editing and mixing tool and like Ableton for its Warp function. For a while I actually performed with Pro Tools, laboriously, but I finally switched to Ableton (if I use a computer at all – I’m fond of Portastudios).”

What one piece of gear in your studio could you not do without, and why?  

“No such piece of gear exists for me. I don’t understand the attachment to gear. I’m not much of a space hog, or a gear hog. As long as I’m able to overdub with some EQ I do well with constraints. Working with a laptop is a way to escape your surroundings, after all. Improvising is fundamental to my music, and fidelity is not as important as one might assume. 

“According to Susan Rogers, Prince didn’t really care what mic she used on his voice, what mattered was capturing a performance. That’s why 1999 sounds oddly trashy, apparently. A great song with an impoverished sound. Lo-fi artefacts can be otherworldly, of course. On the other hand, Bowie’s Lodger sounds trashy because it was mixed in a rush, and it bums me out. The baroque qualities are lost, its legs are cut off.”

What's the latest addition to your studio? 

“A Tascam Portastudio 424. It has a wonderful degradation, the tape speed can give you wild transformations. I’ll record a glockenspiel at a very slow speed for a half hour and then play it at high speed - it’s a pinball machine. Or the opposite process, and it sounds like a big wobbly gong. Or record a drone and switch back and forth to portamento between pitches. It’s useful for playing tapes in a group improvisation, it just doesn’t have many channels. I  prefer this over using a controller attached to a computer. I don’t enjoy the mediation of the  experience.”

What dream bit of gear would you love to have in your studio?  

“I don’t dream about gear… I dream of a Hammond B3. Or an ARP 2500, of course… something I would break the bank for. I recently got to play a B3 - we rented it to perform Giusto Pio’s Motore Immobile at Roulette Intermedium. Playing the harmonics with the drawbars. A gentleman named DJ Spam in Miami showed me how to play one.”

When approaching a new track or project, where do you start?  

“I use a prompt of some kind, a sound from an existing session or a field recording. I might begin by matching, and then contrasting, the pitches of two instruments. I tune by ear, I don’t usually use a click track, and I never use a sequencer. I might record a modular synth wave  with a slow envelope, and bow my saw to match it, or harmonize with it. Stacking an intuitive progression. Eventually I’ll put together a shifting or rhythmic sound, a contrast.”

Tell us about how you approached the production on your new project. Did you experiment with any new techniques?  

“There is more rhythm. My music tends to be spacier, and I will return to that. But there is an emphasis on eclectic percussion. The bones of some tracks, for instance, were a Drum Rhythm Machine 16 through a Soma Labs LYRA-8 synth. It was challenging to sequence the music because it is more diverse than anything I have done before.”

Tell us about one artist or track that’s inspired you the most as a producer and musician?

“Here is an image that really stuck with me. Robert Pollard spoke about hearing a cassette with no breaks between tracks. The lack of space created a montage, one sonic space crashing into the next, like a character who falls through the floor of their apartment into a tiki lounge.”

What are you currently working on? 

“Quite a few things at the moment… I make collages, paper and aluminum that I carve away into forms and encase inside of bubbly RV skylights. Upcoming gigs are the Foreign & Domestic Gallery for Peter BD’s July series; Text Sound Expo on August 3 in a new group with the poet Edwin Torres and cellist Alex Waterman. In the late fall there will be a performance I can’t announce just yet on so-called Italian Minimalism”.

Gryphon Rue's 4n_Objx is out now.