Gryphon Rue’s music isn’t easy to categorise; one moment he’ll be thrashing out Krautrock-esque drum grooves, and the next he’s warping the sounds of his own stomach into densely textured electroacoustic noise. If there’s one thread running through his diverse catalogue, it’s a commitment to experimentation and a willingness to plunge into the unknown, taking the listener along for the ride.
A multi-disciplinary artist, composer and musician based in New York, Rue has released music on a variety of cultish imprints that includes Not Not Fun and Astral Editions. He describes his latest project, 4n_Objx, as “more diverse” than anything he’s done before; where previous albums such as 2022’s A Spirit Appears to a Pair of Lovers stretched out towering synth drones into the cosmos, 4n_Objx brings us back down to earth with the intoxicating pulse of Rue’s sequencers and drum machines.
It’s an eclectic project, consistently dodging expectations throughout its ten tracks; recalls the frenetic, oddball dance music of James Holden, before we’re thrown into a, which sounds like nothing more than a piano reflected by a funhouse mirror. crashes field recordings up against hypnotic arpeggios, while moulds recordings of Rue’s father’s voice into a gibbering accompaniment for a cascading ensemble of synths. is an unapologetically strange record, and all the better for it.
