Pynchon Music: Ramleh

Weird Tyranny

We were interested in fear and terror and used the things that disturbed us to influence the mood of the listener—to call up some kind of raw emotion. That kind of gut-reaction music and style worked for me then like nothing else could and made me glad to be a musician once more.
—Gary Mundy, 1992

Ramleh (1982–present)

Pynchon Connection

Gary Mundy is a fan of Gravity’s Rainbow, and Pynchon’s early writing informs the work of Ramleh from the beginning of their career to the present day. This is most prominently displayed on three albums:

Ramleh’s Pynchon connection begins with the song “Nordhausen” on Return to Slavery. (Originally released as a split-LP, Side 2 was titled Slaughter at Random, and was a 23-minute long piece by Libertarian Recordings, Philip Best’s group.) A critical location in Pynchon’s novel, Nordhausen is the site of Mittelwerk, the Nazi’s central V-2 factory, which used slave labor from the nearby Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. While it’s possible Mundy may have read about Nordhausen elsewhere, the fact Boeing juxtaposes references to Gravity’s Rainbow next to images of V-2 rockets suggests a possible connection from the beginning. Recorded during Ramleh’s power electronics phase, “Nordhausen” is five minutes of brittle, glassy droning; a locust hum that almost, but not quite, sets your teeth on edge. A man is heard shouting in the background, but distortion renders his words unintelligible, and even the language is obscured—it could be Hitler exhorting the masses?

Return to Slavery concludes with “Phenol.” Also known as carbolic acid, phenol was widely used as an antiseptic during mid-century surgical procedures. Under the horrifying accords of Aktion T4, the Nazis used injections of phenol to execute people, particularly children. While phenol is not one of the numerous chemicals specifically mentioned in Gravity’s Rainbow, it’s a simple aromatic compound composed of a hydroxyl group attached to a benzene ring. And it’s derived from coal tar. As benzene rings and coal tar derivatives feature prominently in Pynchon’s novel, along with atrocities linked to the German pharmaceutical industry, it seems reasonable to connect the piece to “Nordhausen.” Eight minutes of steady, electronic hissing—the “dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World?”—“Phenol” also features a man shouting, but like “Nordhausen,” the distorted echo renders his words impossible to decipher.

Fourteen years later, Mundy brough Gravity’s Rainbow to the forefront on Ramleh’s 1997 LP, Boeing. The cover features an image of a V-2 rocket adjacent a block of hand-written text. Presumably written by Mundy, the text calls the reader’s attention to the relationship between Nazi Germany and modern “totalitarian systems,” a reference to Philip K. Dick providing a definite “The Empire Never Ended” vibe. Thomas Pynchon and Gravity’s Rainbow are mentioned by name; though a few facts are jumbled, particularly the conflation of New Mexico with Mexico proper. Nevertheless, Mundy mentions “Togetherness,” Pynchon’s article for Boeing’s Aerospace, hence the name of the album. The first track is also entitled “Knight of Wands.” While this particular card doesn’t appear in Gravity’s Rainbow, the Tarot plays an important role in the novel, and Mundy takes pains to mention “The Fool” in his liner notes. The album itself represents Ramleh in space-rock mode. An hour of galactic fuzz, plodding bass, spacey electronics, and psychedelic guitar, it’s significantly more accessible than Ramleh’s early works, and fits comfortably in the record bin somewhere between Hawkwind and Acid Mothers Temple.

The most recent incarnation of Ramleh has gone the way of the Swans, embracing sprawling double albums and adhering to more cohesive musical structures than their previous work. Circular Time contains no direct references to Pynchon, but features two songs that are likely inspired by his writing: “Ascent,” an important theme in Gravity’s Rainbow, often capitalized and appearing as the penultimate section-heading in the novel, and “Entropy,” the title of an early Pynchon story and a running theme in his work. Indeed, Ramleh member Anthony di Franco founded a record label named “Entropy.” Both songs are excellent examples of Ramleh’s current style. A musical cousin to Radiohead’s “Myxomatosis,” “Ascent” is born aloft by a muscular rhythm section and waves of propulsive guitar, while “Entropy” is ten minutes of droning distortion that sounds like an update of Boeing.

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