Dekmantel Podcast 329 - Gavilán Rayna Russom

Gavilán Rayna Russom (@gavilanraynarussom) is an accomplished and multi-disciplinary artist who works in the fields of performance, visual art, film, and writing. Musically, the New York composer necessarily works under a wide array of alias in order to capture the broad range of sounds she makes. From experimental drone techno as Hail of Arrows to acid and EBM under her own name via new wave as Black Meteoric Star, to touring extensively with LCD Soundsystem: she is impossible to pin down. In 2020, she founded the Voluminous Arts label as a home for boundary-pushing artists. She also released Secret Passage, an album of ambient created around her memories of growing up in the East Side Rail Tunnel which runs for one mile under the streets of Providence, Rhode Island. Later this year, another full length is due under her Black Meteoric Star alias. As a DJ of 30 year's experience, Rayna is just as free-range, and she demonstrates that is this week's mix. At over three hours long, it is an epic oeuvre with many different chapters. There are passages of fuzzy, distorted ambient with a muted industrial clatter that take you to those underground train tracks, pieces of sound art that pair spoken word with icy wave minimalism, plus thrilling club, rock, and noise selections that are all coated in layers of grit and grime. Keeping the intensity so high, for so long, is no mean feat. But in Gavilán Rayna Russom's hands, it seems effortless.