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Long-time RwdFwd connection from overseas - SKRS aka Seekersinternational - back at the controls via their ICS Libray with a striking sound(system)piece - lock & load, but don't hurt no body - this is 'the gun tune to end all gun tune'

It's always a special moment when a new SKRS transmission hits our turntable.
You never know quite what theme to expect, yet you can always rely on a certain special comfort... That 'strictly SKRS style' concoction of ghostly dubwise, melodious, heavily analog harmony and woozy synthlines that fling through the myriad of tape-echoes, pitch-delays and chamber reverbs, specially tuned and built up in the SKRS studio.

This one, entitled 'The Guncontrolla' harks back to the sparse, meditative styles of their Rootprinciple release for NoCorner and the now hard-to-find dubplate excavations of the 'RunComeTest EP' released a little while back via Bokeh Versions x NC -
however, we dare say this one goes a few steps lower, deeper down into new, unexplored cavernous regions. Drum rhythms are left as skeletal pieces in the imagination, with the bullet drops and the lock & load alerting the synapses in a similar way.
Straight out of Kingston, the narration gives the whole venture a cinematic, film noir / early Horror film, almost story-telling vibe - it's a masterful composition that manages to keep things stripped to the very minimum without ever loosing interest.
From the deliciously bare tape-echo feedback and stereo-spread fx of the first few minutes, right to to the build of vox and subtle sounds throughout, this is a patient affair that clocks in at over 30mins of enlightening total run time...
Brain music that will tune your body clock to zen bullet time mode.

We've said enough now but...Here's some more official insight on the makings of this particular piece:

"‘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 romanticisation or fetishisation 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’ spliced into scenes from ‘Falling Down’, fed thru psychodelic, dematerialised concrète that intends to defuse and diffuse the curse of gun violence with the black magick of dub musick."

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We're on our fourth start-to-finish listen in a row now, and we don't regret a single minute of it.
Still deep in the zone with this one - don't worry, it'll get played again later on too!

Ah, and we should also give a quick shout to the ALWAYS top artwork that comes with the SKRS output... Is it MYSTERYFORMS at the controls for that again?

Edition of 500.
Over 30mins meditation time.
Mastered at D&M.
Served with printed sleeve.

Movement I-IV

Movement V-VIII