The Gwenifer Raymond Interview
In the ravishing depths of Fahey’s subconscious sparked a whole new generation of musicians from around the world to continue carrying and evolving the mystic touch of the Primitive guitar. Raymond’s approach to her instrument is like a rapid river of splendid notes all crashing and contemplating each other as they carry its listener down an ancient stream and into the historical void. Growing up in Taffs Well, Raymond was influenced by the greats such as Nirvana, Dylan, The Velvet Underground and Neil Young and played in punk/post punk bands throughout her teenage years before arriving at the crossroads of the Primitive sound. With the release of her debut LP “You Never Were Much Of A Dancer” on Tompkins Square, Raymond has made a name for herself and has permanently made her unique mark on a legacy of magicians, story-tellers, mystics and cosmic counsellors.
Tell me about growing up in Cardiff. What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin to fall in love with music and what was it that initially fascinated you about it, more specifically the guitar? Was music relevant around your household growing up?
I actually grew up in Taffs Well, at the foot of the Garth Mountain, in that strange nether region about halfway between where Cardiff ends and the valleys begin. I first became interested in music when I was around eight or nine, when my mother gave me a cassette tape copy of Nirvana’s “Nevermind”. I had never heard anything like it before, never heard any music that really so mercilessly wormed into my hyperactive little brain. Something about the energy of it; raw and filthy noise being emitted from the amps. I asked if I could have a guitar for my birthday and it all went downhill from there. There was always music playing in the house growing up. A lot of stuff like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Velvet Underground, etc. Plus, myriad other stuff. There was always an idea in our household that music was serious business, and not just something light and entertaining to be played in the background.
Do you have any siblings? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? When and where did you see your first concert that really made an impact on you in your formative years? Who were some of your earliest influences?
Yeah, I’m the youngest of four: I have two brothers and a sister, but there’s a decent age gap between us all. Hanging out with friends growing up definitely involved a lot of music; I’ve been actively playing in bands since I was fourteen so that was pretty much the main thing we did for fun. Plus, we used to spend a lot of time skating around various spots in Cardiff, but I hope I’m a better musician than I ever was a skateboarder. I’d say the main bands that influenced the music we were playing as teenagers were guys like Pixies, Butthole Surfers, Stooges, X Ray Spex, The Fall, Gang of Four, etc.
Did you participate in any groups prior to setting out as a solo artist? When and where did you play your first gig and what was that experience like for you? 2018 saw the release of your debut album “You Never Were Much Of A Dancer”. Tell me about writing and recording that album and the overall vision was for putting that project together. How did the deal and friendship with Tompkins Square come about?
Yeah, as I mentioned above I’ve been playing in bands since I was around fourteen - my first ever gig was actually depping as a drummer in my brother’s noize band at Club Ifor Bach in Cardiff. With Dancer being a debut album it was, as a lot of debut albums are, something that had been coming together for a long time. Because of that there wasn’t necessarily a super conceptual vision of ‘this is what this album shall be and this is what it shall say’, but rather it was a collection of tunes composed in isolation, each of which are a snapshot in time. The Tompkins Square deal pretty much came out of nowhere. I had been playing around locally to a lot of empty rooms, and I was finding it hard to carve out a space for myself in the scene. I was pretty down on the whole thing to be honest, and one night I was out playing a show really thinking I might pack it all in. While I was sitting in the back of the venue feeling a little sorry for myself, an email from Tompkins Square popped up on my phone, asking if I’d be interested in putting out an album with them. I found out later what had happened was that another Brighton finge-style guitar player, Doctor Turtle, had sent my EP over to Jeffrey Davdison at WFMU in New Jersey. He in turn had sent it over to Josh Rosenthal at TSQ, and it all just sort of came together.
2020 saw the release of your follow up “Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain”. Can you tell me about writing and recording this recording and the approach you wanted to take that differs from the previous album?
This album came together over a much shorter timescale, and so I think it’s more of a cohesive single piece of work. Before really starting work on the album I’d written a track called The Three Deaths of Red Spectre to be performed as a live score for a 1907 silent movie called The Red Spectre. Because it was a composition that had to accompany the flow and narrative of the film, it naturally couldn’t follow the more standard pop/folk structure that I’d usually been adhering to. Instead it had more the structure of moments, like you have in classical music. I think that changed my writing style a lot and is quite noticeably present on Strange Lights. I also feel like I traded in some of the blues/Americana elements in my tunes (though I did not entirely abandon, there’s definitely some still in there) for some more focus on the gothic and melodramatic. Plus the fact that the tunes were written over a shorter time-frame just naturally makes them feel more thematically cohesive.
What would you say has been the overall vision for your music? What do you find yourself expressing, or exploring the most through your music? What have you got in the works as 2023 continues to roll out nearing Spring/Summer? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
I’m not sure I’d say there was really one single overall vision for my music. It’s kind of more whatever’s going on in my head at the time I’m writing. It. I can’t really approach writing a piece of music with a specific intention - it has to just come together naturally. It’s more like you’re negotiating with the music, trying to figure out what the tune is trying to say, rather than imposing your will onto it. Or maybe it’s the other way around and the tune is trying to negotiate something out of your own mind. Either way for me, to really attempt to understand how the music works would rob it of a lot of its power. Coming up, I’m playing a few gigs (it’s a little slow gig-wise this year, but I think that’s something a lot of musicians are experiencing at the moment) and I’m working on material for a new album, it just needs to figure out what it wants to be...
