From under the counter: The duo, Hunter Gatherer

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: HUNTER GATHERER
Hunter Gatherer's self-titled cassette is arguably one of the best underground releases this city's ever heard.

No one in the London music scene blends so many sounds into one cohesive release as Hunter Gatherer does in its raw and low-fi self-titled cassette tape. It’s a fantastic release and it’s no surprise that it’s been getting them praise on various music blogs.

Hunter Gatherer is a two-piece project, utilizing a horde of effects, loops and weird synth programming with a well-defined sound. As a genre, I’m unsure of how to categorize it. The down tuned and fuzzed out guitar is drowning in mud and grooves extremely well with the free jazz drum lines.

Stylistically there are lots of influences that pop in here. The heavy, slow sections are derivative of what is known as stoner metal, a genre that was pioneered by bands like Sleep, Electric Wizard, and Kyuss who took the heavy elements of doom metal – a slow, Black Sabbath- inspired sub-genre of metal – and mixed it with 1960’s psychedelic rock.

These doomy sections are also influenced by other genres, such as shoegaze, which can be briefly described as a spacey and melodic derivative of alternative rock, black metal and some brief elements of progressive rock.

Each song is long to reflect these influences, which typically have song lengths that range from six to 12 minutes but don’t let that dissuade you if you’re not into that sort of thing.

Hunter Gatherer does a fantastic job at keeping the flow of each song. There are repetitive sections yes, but they are only there to hold you until the next portion that could be anything from a heavier variation on a previous riff to a wave of synth melodies as heard on the song “Subtle Bodies.”

While Hunter Gatherer is instrumental, each song is representative of the natural energy from Earth itself. Everything from the cover art to the song names to even the band name itself has some sort of allusion to a primitive co-existence with the environment outside of our concrete jungles. We often forget the power that the earth has and how its power has guided us throughout our evolutionary history.

This album certainly pays homage to that, and it does it effectively without making direct lyrical references.

The band plays live every so often and that in itself is a whole other beast. The rawness of the cassette quality doesn’t quite match the low end that is put out from the duo when they perform. Occasionally, front man Kameron performs solo on his guitar, and it’s just as effective in that context.

This is definitely one of the best releases in the London underground and you should check it out at hunter-gatherer519.bandcamp.com immediately.