Kuts by Gamma Knife
Out of the murky, mystic world of Komodo Kolektif slides the Gamma Knife.
In the corner of a dank, dark mind, a nebulous notion condenses and solidifies, featureless and blind...and from that Komodo Klay a new kreature is hacked, molded and (mal)formed.
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“The foundations of some of these pieces were laid almost a decade ago, others more recently. All of them came into being as sketches intended as Komodo Kolektif tracks to develop but for various reasons this didn't happen. The Seven Heavenly Elements was first presented to the group in 2019 but partly through personal differences in musical taste as well as COVID throwing a spanner in the works it was put aside and never worked on collectively. The two Disciple of the Drum 'dubs' are essentially rhythm tracks using the rhythm and percussion of Disciple Of The Drone, also from 2019, stripping away the drone, then the gamelan melody and finally, even the bass line, which was initially intended to be the fundamental driving force of at least one of these dubs. In the end neither of these two tracks became what I had imagined, and veered off elsewhere, but that's how creativity works sometimes. The vocal parts in Cantation Dub were added most recently, just a few months ago. Fire Dub is just an exercise in trying to rein in some insane delays and barely managing. The Ghost of Water is an anomaly because many of the fundamental parts are taken from the same jam session recorded in 2015 that led to Djakarta 3001 from the first EP. If you listen closely you'll hear Graeme Miller on guitar (back when guitar was still featured in our weekly jam sessions). I discovered this unedited hour-long jam session on an older hard drive in late 2023 and decided to fashion something from it until what became Ghost of Water materialised: the heavily delayed saron instruments, the jaw harp, the percussion and so on. What makes the track an anomaly is that it is in some ways both the oldest and newest piece of the five. The Seventh Element takes one of the seven elements of The Seven Heavenly Elements (in this case the Mopho synth tuned to the Indonesian pelog scale and ran through the Boss DE-200's depth modulator) to which I then added some gong parts and field recordings from Bali.
Once complete, I realised with an album's worth of material sitting there which was more “Komodo Kolektif” than anything I would normally produce solo, there came the problem of trying to work out what to do with this distinctly Komodo-esque, non-Komodo material. I came up with the idea of releasing it under the name Komodo Kuts...but a part of me felt I'd be cashing in on the Komodo name so ditched that part entirely...but the kuts remained, which seemed appropriate when used alongside my Gamma Knife moniker (which has a long story of its own...in a nutshell I had a benign brain tumour which only 1 in 10,000 people get and which is most frequently removed with a gamma knife (radiation). In medical parlance the device used in this treatment is often shortened to GK machine. I had been using the DJ name GK Machine, which came from my signature GK Mackinnon, since 1994, in other words long before this diagnosis, and long before the internet and hearing anything about brain tumour treatment. In the end I had brain surgery in Spain without use of gamma radiation...but the synchronicity of the name connection fascinated me nevertheless...and still does. What are the odds? Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways).
In any case, now that these tracks have finally fledged the nest, I feel somewhat liberated and can move on from this fairly niche and specific sound. The gamelan instruments have been returned to Gamelan Naga Mas, from who we'd borrowed them, and the masks hung up. This does not mean that Graeme Miller and I won't work together again in future...I'm sure we will...it just means we won't be tied to working within the constraints of gamelan, synths, percussion and dub that we became known for. So stay tuned...surely something lurks around the corner” GKM, November 2024
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Last but most certainly not least, all profits from this release will be donated to Edinburgh Direct Aid with whom I have had a close relationship over the years. They do incredibly humbling and positive work around the globe...and most recently are fundraising for Lebanon where millions are now displaced into Syria and Iraq and homes being bombed to smithereens and thousands of innocent civilians being killed by the Israeli aggression. I feel, since I have no other artists to pay in connection to this release (I did the artwork too) I can donate 100% of the revenue to a worthy cause. On that note, here is a link to this latest EDA initiative: https://www.edinburghdirectaid.org/LebanonBombardment/LebanonEmergency.htm
A1 The Seven Heavenly Elements 11:05
A2 The Disciple Of The Drum (Cantation Dub) 04:27
A3 The Disciple Of The Drum (Fire Dub) 04:36
B1 The Ghost Of Water 14:59
B2 The Seventh Element 04:34
Tracklist
Credits
All music performed and processed by Gamma Knife, except guitar on B1 by Graeme Miller. Mastered by James Savage at Milk Mastering. Distributed by RubADub.
Instruments: Djembe, Berber square drum, Moroccan metal castanets, shaker, tambourine, bongos, maracas, rattle, Javanese gong ageng, Javanese kempul, Javanese saron, Balinese gong ageng, Balinese kempul, Roland R8 Mk II, DSI Mopho, Roland Jupiter-8, Roland SH-101, Sequential Circuits Pro One, Behringer TD-3, Moog Voyager, Moog Minitaur, jaw harp, guitar, Presonus StudioLive 16.0.2, Roland Space Echo RE-150, Zoom 1201 multi effects, Boss DE-200, voice, field recordings.
Mastered by James Savage at Milk Mastering
Sleeve layout and design by Gordon Mackinnon
