seekersinternational: the guncontrolla

The gun tune to end all gun tune, The Guncontrolla is a righteous pacifist dub statement from the Seekersinternational posse, who go about field recording a workshop on a classic firearm disassembly and reassembly demonstration conducted by a Cold War veteran at a military surplus shop; a practice known in the community as "field-stripping". Armed with a battery-operated 1987 Tascam Porta Two 4-track recorder and a Shure SM57 cardioid microphone, the SKRS dismantle the disassembly of a Colt British Service Pistol, a Glock 34 Competition Pistol, a Kalashnikov 1967 Soviet Rifle, and a Springfield M1 Garand Rifle, in a temporal warp of dreamlike dread tension, where, crucially, not a single shot is fired. It's clear and fair to say the SKRS treat their subject carefully to avoid any sort of romanticization or fetishization of guns or violence. Instead they carefully but ruggedly use dub's transfigurative techniques to turn the workshop recording into an absorbingly abstract warning shot coaxed out of their mythical echo chamber. Drawing on ideas of metaphysics, metallurgy, and telekinetic mysticism, the results are fascinating, conjuring some imaginative intersection of a back yard GRM and the Black Ark, and characters from The Harder They Come (1972) spliced into scenes from Falling Down, fed thru psycho-delic, dematerialized concrète that intends to defuse and diffuse the curse of gun violence with the black magick of dub musick. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Edition of 500.