“Life’s a cake,” screams frontman Glenn Wild in “GROTH’s album opener, which is defined as to act in a manner showing that you are frustrated, annoyed, or angry. Not only do you feel every bone in your body rattling along with the drums, every blood cell vibrating to each frivolously deranged guitar pluck, but you’re transported to another musical dimension transcend- ing the noise garbage, which is falsely forced upon you daily. You feel something again. You feel the noise, its detached vigour; each band member with an instrument in one hand, and a ‘Holsten Pils’ in the other.
“If you’re going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.”—Bukowski, Roll of Dice
Originating from a warehouse in Hackney Wick, London and formed in the summer of last year, they played their first show, for Aza Shade’s (Manflu) birthday. The previous winter saw them record a 27 minute improvised EP called Cosmic Grit in Red Bull Studios for designer Liam Hodges. The band has several side projects attached to them, such as homemade instruments made by housemate Morten Jorgensen, some of which are crafted from toilet seats, skateboards and old pieces of wood. The bassist, Conrad Armstrong, also runs a personalized leather jacket company with artist Nuha Ruby Ra, called Peacecore.
They don’t do things the conventional way, and their music certainly emits a flame of energy that stirs something within you—things that are easily numbed by the world we’re sur- rounded by (reference their collage in response to the inter- view questions). Living together as a band clearly influences their music, it’s tight, self-possessed and the blurred vivacity they exude is beyond what you’d expect. An index of psychotic sounds grouped together, enveloping you in a trance-like state, forgetting your surroundings and leaving you swimming in their clever manipulation of the fuzz. Exposed wails and cries can be heard through the guitars, gathered anguish through the drums and the anticipation emitted among the group.
“Go all the way.
It could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days. It could mean freezing on a
park bench.
It could mean jail,
it could mean derision, mockery,
isolation.
Isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
And you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds and it will be better than anything else
you can imagine.”—Bukowski, Roll of Dice
The vocalized shouts and screams fuse this psychedelic musical riot as one, gifting you sense of their sounds and a meaning behind the trance-like state by which you’ve been conquered. Being trapped in the haze of Puffer’s haze is nothing short of revolutionary, pushing and shoving you until, eventually, you wake up and open your eyes.
Text by Katia Ganfield
Photography by Ben Palmer