Ramleh arose out of the early ’80s UK industrial/noise scene that also produced Whitehouse and Sutcliffe Jugend, and like those acts, they seemed like the next step after Throbbing Gristle, offering electronic provocations aimed at shocking the more conservative denizens of their little island. Their first release, the cassette 31/5/1962 - 1982, was inspired by the execution by hanging of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, which took place at Ramleh Prison in Israel, and they gave their early tracks titles like “Throatsuck”, “Phenol”, “Emaciator”, “New Force” and “A Return to Slavery”. That version of Ramleh broke up in 1984, but founder Gary Mundy re-launched the group in 1989, and changed direction. Bringing in bassist Anthony di Franco and drummer Stuart Dennison, both members of the psychedelic noise-rock group Skullflower (with whom Mundy also played), they shifted in a more guitar-bass-drums direction, creating a vast amorphous roar that could peel your scalp.
These days, they combine both approaches, adding electronic noise to their trance-inducing jams and vice versa. Their last three “rock band” albums, 2015’s Circular Time, 2019’s The Great Unlearning, and this year’s Hyper Vigilance, offer krautrock and postpunk rhythms, analog synth pulses, and endless washes of distorted guitar, with occasional hectoring lyrics, filtered through distortion as well, that are sometimes political and other times merely accusatory. At its best, their music has an extraordinary physical power — the louder you play it, the better it sounds — but the feeling of interaction and real listening at the heart of it puts it into the company of the best modern psychedelia.
I sent Anthony di Franco some questions by email, which he was kind enough to answer.
I remember reading at the time that Circular Time has a sort of story arc — can you explain that in some detail? Is it a concept album, or just organized musically in some way?
It’s really a mixture of the two. The album starts and ends with an acoustic guitar motif and the idea was that it was cyclic, that the end rejoins the beginning and the whole piece loops for eternity. The concept behind this was that the album traced a journey from birth to death and to “rebirth”, and this was a conscious nod to ideas like eternal return, reincarnation, the karmic wheel.
Arguably it was extremely pretentious, following in the grand tradition of Western art-rock bands purloining half-understood aspects of Eastern philosophy and weaving them into expansive musical statements. But at the same time it was genuine and we did “mean it”. The idea was that we all go through individual and unique cycles of birth and rebirth throughout our own lifetimes, and there are some personal statements and mythologies woven into the album as well.
Circular Time was drawn from ten years of recording sessions that started in the early noughties. So we had a huge amount of tracks to draw from. The concept and the structure were actually in mind very early on in the process, and it persisted until we completed it. It gave us a framing device to structure the album in a pleasing way.
What made you all decide to return to a more rock-oriented sound in 2015 after so many years of more electronic/noise-oriented music?
In truth the timeline may be deceptive. Although Circular Time came out in 2015, we actually started working and recording as a rock band a decade before. So the album is the culmination of that 10-year period of working together. And throughout the same period we were also playing live and recording in the two-man electronic, drummer-less lineup, and we recorded and released a power electronics album in 2009 called Valediction. So both sides of the band have run in parallel over the last 20 years, and there’s been a cross-pollination between the two sides as a result.
The whole approach of having both versions of the group running simultaneously was really a huge experiment for us and we had no idea how it was going to turn out. Looking back I think it helped us evolve and develop new approaches, and I think you can hear that on the new album.
There are only three of you, but there are often multiple layers of guitar on record — how much of any given album is spontaneously created, and how much plotted out and rehearsed, etc.?
We have different ways of doing things, it really depends on the particular track. With “Thunberg II” on the new album, that one started with me humming a tune in the car on the way to the studio. When I got there I was still humming it and I said, “Can we do something in this key?” We worked out it was B flat and the three of us — me, Gary and Stuart — just began jamming along to that chord. We did two versions; the second, slower version is the one on the album. I wrote the lyrics after we had the music and we did the vocals at the end of the process. But with a track like “Nothing Here But Fire”, that’s really just a straightforward song. Gary brought it into the studio and he already had the lyrics and basic song structure, and we then worked on it as a band to create and arrange the recorded version. But at its core it’s a simple folk song. Gary could pick up an acoustic guitar and play the song solo… he could busk it in the London Underground if he wanted to!
What is Ramleh’s attitude toward/philosophy on improvisation generally?
I think we’re lucky in that we don’t have to rely on any rules or philosophies when we're playing together. We know each other so well we can simply do what we do and we're free to throw ideas in. I mean it blows my mind a little when I think about it… I’ve been playing with Gary since 1989 when I was 16, and started playing with Stuart in Skullflower not long afterwards. So I’ve been working with these guys my whole adult life. And I think it’s natural to develop a degree of musical groupthink and intuition when you’ve played together that long. It’s a privilege, really, to work with great players and to be able to develop a collective musical language over a lifetime. And the creative freedom it now gives us as a band is extraordinary.
Some of my favorite pieces from Hyper Vigilance are “Into The Termite Mound”, which has an almost Tangerine Dream feel, and “New National Anthem”, which goes through multiple stages including acoustic guitar, screeching electronic noise, and seemingly everything in between. What can you say about those two tracks?
Firstly, I really appreciate the Tangerine Dream comparison; I was listening heavily to TD and solo Edgar Froese stuff while we were recording the album, and I think the influence did flow through, certainly in the synth overdubs…
We recorded Hyper Vigilance before, during and after the COVID and lockdown period, and that influenced the album in many ways. When we started recording in 2019 it was by jamming together as a three-piece and seeing what ideas emerged. “Thunberg II” was one track that came out of this process.
We did the first version of "New National Anthem” at the same time, and it really started out as a title in search of music — we knew the title was good, but the first version of the track was a loose, inconclusive instrumental jam. It wasn’t good enough to use. Then I wrote the lyrics and said to Gary that we should do it as a short, sharp power electronics track with a regular fast pulse running through it, just two to three minutes long, repeat the words twice and bang, it’s done. Then we thought, actually we could extend it and have two contrasting sections, one noisy and one quiet. Then Gary said, “Why don’t we extend further and have multiple sections, but with the same beat running through it continuously, to provide a common link between all the parts?”, and then it escalated into being a side-long track with 12 sections, all of which juxtapose with each other as violently as possible. It’s almost like a musical version of the old “Exquisite Corpse” parlour game. In a way I think we were challenging ourselves to do this, to create a 20-minute track with multiple sections, in multiple styles, and somehow make it work. Looking back it seems we were tilting at windmills — we must be fucking masochists!
We exhausted our craft completely to create it, but what is gratifying is that a lot of people who’ve heard it since the album came out say it’s their favourite track. I’m not sure we expected that reaction, but I’m very happy about it.
“Into The Termite Mound” came about in very different circumstances. During lockdown everyone was isolating and we couldn’t work in the studio. Then things gradually opened up so that at least two of us could get together, and “Termite Mound” was one idea that I brought in from home. It’s an instrumental but its theme is the alienating effects of technology, which is something that I was very much feeling during that lockdown period. So it’s kind of an angry track, but because it’s so electronic it sounds very cold and detached, quite melancholy. I like the contrast between the synths and Gary’s guitar, which is really lyrical and harmonic, riding above the whole thing. And I don’t think Stuart’s drums have ever sounded better.
The Great Unlearning and Hyper Vigilance seem more overtly political (in a PIL/Killing Joke sense) than Circular Time, which feels to me more provocative/nihilistic in a Whitehouse/early Swans sort of way. Do you think the group’s lyrical perspective has “evolved” over the last decade?
I think there’s some truth in that. Certainly when we decided to call the album Hyper Vigilance we thought that it was a phrase that perfectly captured the kind of mass psychosis that seems to be all around us at the moment. I think the last two albums have had much more what you might call social commentary, or social or political satire, in them. It’s possible that we’ve semi-consciously produced a couple of albums that reflect the times we are living in. We never set out to do this; it wasn’t our stated goal as such, but once you’ve decided you want to have tracks with lyrics and vocals you have no choice but to write, whether you like it or not.
I mean, I’ve never set out to be a lyric writer but I do love using and abusing the English language, and I’m sure Gary feels the same. And if you’re going to write you need a subject, or a target perhaps, to give you a direction. Or a line of attack. That’s how it seems to work for me anyway — generally I need to draw on some negative feelings about something first to give me the energy to spin off and complete a song. It’s not always anger that starts the process for me, though. There’s a track on the new one called “The Ingathering” which I started writing in response to someone close to me losing one of their parents to a terminal illness.
I think there are some recurring lyrical themes on The Great Unlearning and Hyper Vigilance… almost like recurring characters. Like the guy I’m writing about in “The Twitch” on the last album is probably the same guy who turns up in “Frisson” on the new record. He’s back, he’s pissed off and he wants revenge…
Me and Gary split the lyric writing between us, and we don’t always explicitly reveal to each other what we’re writing about… although sometimes we do. But looking at Gary’s words I’ve got a fair idea of where he’s coming from. I think anyone with any sense can get what “Nothing Here But Fire” is about… I’m not going to speculate here of course, it’s far better to leave it to the individual to form their own response.