When Bristol’s Cube Microplex announced that guitar and banjo doyenne Gwenifer Raymond would be opening for Michael Hurley in June, there was never any question about whether I’d be attending. The venue’s 135 miles away, you say? When the Lord get ready, you gotta move…
I’d already heard Gwenifer’s Deep Sea Diver 7” and an advance download of her terrific debut album You Never Were Much Of A Dancer, but the precision and ferocity of the music that she unassumingly wrought from her instruments left everyone in that room (the aforementioned Mr Hurley included) wide-eyed and open-mouthed in delighted astonishment.
“That guitar’s dead now, unfortunately,” she informs me, deadpan, a couple of weeks later. “The neck’s totally gone on it, which is a real shame…”
A Welshwoman now resident in Brighton, Gwenifer Raymond is currently the most talked-about musician in American Primitive circles. She somehow channels the spirits of Skip James, John Fahey and Dock Boggs whilst remaining entirely true to herself. Her all-instrumental, hook-laden compositions are both coherent and concise - proper, exciting tunes that never outstay their welcome nor lose their way in pointless noodling.
“Ah, it’s probably because I’m an old punk musician!” she laughs. “I started off playing in punk bands around the Welsh valleys , so I’ve always liked riffs. When I’m writing, a lot of it is assembling what I think are cool riffs together. I like noise, as well. Even though I’ve played in very different styles, I always joke that I have exactly one trick, which is to pick a note that’s not in the scale and just stick it in there! When I say I’m an old punk, I was more on the left-field, avant-garde end of punk. I’ve always been a big fan of The Fall and things like that. Basically, I like a bit of a dirge, but I like there to be a riff in it. Those two things can complement each other quite well, I think…”
Like many a musician featured in these pages, Gwenifer’s acoustic epiphany arrived in the form of Nirvana’s 1994 Unplugged in New York (Live).
“I was a huge Nirvana fan, which meant that I was also really interested in all their influences. They played that Lead Belly song (Where Did You Sleep Last Night?) - a great version of a great song, so I wanted to know who Lead Belly was and started looking into it. Neither of my parents play music but there were a lot of records around - Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and 1960s and 70s Greenwich Village kind of stuff. I bought a bunch of those The Blues Roots Of… CDs because I liked the artists they were referencing in the titles. I think the first Mississippi John Hurt songs I ever heard were on The Early Blues Roots Of Bob Dylan - it’s a really great CD!”
“Oh, Skip James blew my mind the first time I heard him! Because he really doesn’t sound like anyone else. His style is completely singular and it sounds really contemporary to me - a maudlin, moody, angular sound. When I got really seriously interested in actually wanting to play the kind of stuff I do now - which is after I’d already been playing guitar for a long time, I tracked down a guitar teacher to specifically suck the knowledge from his brain so I could play like Skip James. He also played clawhammer banjo, so I got him to teach me that too. I owned a banjo for a long time before I really started playing it properly. I have this problem that when I learn a new instrument I get really obsessed - I can’t stop playing it. I played so much banjo in two weeks that I actually damaged my shoulder and then couldn’t play anything for ages…”
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| Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James |
“At the moment I’m still playing fairly random shows and make video games for a living. I’d like to try and do a tour - I’d like to tour Europe before Brexit! I’d like to do an American tour as well at some point, but obviously that’s more complicated because of visas and stuff. One of the things I’m pushing for at the moment is trying to get a booking agent as it’s a lot of work doing it all yourself. The night I got the e-mail from Josh (Rosenthal, Tompkins Square Records) offering me a record deal, I was playing a gig and saying to myself this is the last one I’m doing. I’d just grown sick of no-one ever answering my e-mails or paying any attention...”
Everyone’s paying attention now.
https://gweniferraymond.bandcamp.com
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