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Australian deathgrind act Gorotica shambled out from the dead blackened underbrush of Sydney’s backwoods. A repulsive, perverted and cannibalistic troupe of questionable French origins.
Living as a reclusive hive for the past three years, the troglodytic trio have been honing their rusted blades and musical skills to now emerge under the Gorotica moniker and bring forth to the public their mission of death and cannibalism in auditory form.
Fronted by band leader and vocalist Jon Von Cannibale, he is joined by Gaspard La Verge who brings his expertise in electric stringed instruments and distorted depravity, with Raymonde Peste rounding out the group with percussive pestilence.
Together this threesome presents a gorging platter of modern death metal and grindcore, with smatterings of hardcore and other sonic anomalies grinded in to the mortar and pestle mixing bowl.
We caught up with them to discuss the new album and writing process.
1. “Daily Grind of the Medieval Age” is such a vivid title. What was the spark that inspired the medieval / cannibalistic concept, and did that vision shift over the writing process?
The concept started and was explored on our first record, but not in such an expansive or unifying way as we have done it this time around for the new album. Grindcore is usually such a political genre and steeped in modern themes, so we thought it might bring something different to the style even though medieval themes have obviously been done to death throughout other extreme metal genres. The album title and song names were all planned out before the writing even began, so the vision was set in place and I worked to keep that as a common theme running throughout the lyrics.
2. Your lyrics weave together grotesque imagery (torture, necrophilia, executioners) with dark humour. How do you balance horror and satire / levity in your storytelling?
It seems to just come naturally, if I can put in something that’s going to make people (or myself) laugh or something absurd I am all for it, and another aspect of the band is that it is supposed to be fun and ridiculous as well as being ultra heavy, so knowing how to find the perfect blend of both as to not stray into parody can be a fine line but I think we have it figured out. I think this new album leaned more into the humour than even the first album also.
3. The press release refers to “clock-watching executioners” — a strange, almost anachronistic detail. What draws you to insert modern touches into medieval settings?
So that is in reference to the track “Hung, Drawn and…Quarter to Eleven” which describes an executioner working the gallows in a fictional medieval town square, and he’s just anxiously watching the town square clock waiting for his morning break to start, and starts getting exasperated when he sees another man sent forward to be hung. From what research I put in apparently there were clock towers in medieval times dating back to the 12th century. Throughout the lyrics I put in care to make sure all of the stories and scenarios could exist within the Middle Ages timeframe.
4. You’re building on the foundation of Morbid Menagerie. Are there specific narrative threads or characters you carried forward into this new album or has this been a completely new concept?
Great question, there are a few little concepts and nods to the first record, but mainly just expanding on the medieval theme that we only touched on with Morbid. The final song on Morbid and the intro track to Daily Grind share the same motif, which I thought would be a cool little detail if anybody listened from Morbid straight into the new record, to hear it done in a different kind of way. Several songs from both albums are kind of linked as well, sort of by the type of story they tell, usually the ones dealing with obscene characters, for example “The Necrophile” and “Mangled in the Livery” both contain a dark protagonist, and I hope to keep that theme running for any future releases.
6. The new record mixes death metal, hyperblasting grindcore, but also nods to hardcore and groove. Which song(s) were most challenging to fuse genres, and why?
These are just how the songs come together naturally, and all the different influences and styles that come out are just a byproduct of my own musical taste and influences shining through in the writing, so I wouldn’t call it a challenge as such when it comes to the fusion, sometimes in the structures of the songs some challenges can arise and there was a couple of tracks that were reworked over the recording process, some parts added and also cut from certain tracks too.
7. “Sage, Clove and Powdered Bone” leans into a mid-paced, old school death style rather than full-on blast. What motivated you to slow down the pace on that one?
Sometimes Raymonde gets sick of gravity blasting every single song, and you’ve always got to have a nice ballad in there as well.
8. Did any riffs or ideas survive from the Morbid Menagerie era but only find their place on this new album?
Just the title track actually, the main riff and chorus were written around the Morbid era, but we actually have two of the shorter tracks on Daily Grind that were written even before Morbid, so you’re getting a little mix of stuff across 6 or 7 years here. Mostly everything is new though.
9. You self-produce (or at least stay in-house) — how do you handle maintaining raw intensity without sacrificing clarity in the mix?
Gaspard and Raymonde are the technical guys when it comes to the recording side, they record and then produce the tracks themselves, I just hand in the compositions and let them add their twist to the music as they see fit (with some supervision). You can’t really go wrong with the modern DAW and plugins now but the boys seem to know what they’re doing to get the best out of it, the mix turned out great on this record. This also gives us a bit more of a budget for other aspects like video clips and merchandise so it’s really a great thing to have.
11. How do the roles split in the creative process now (Jon Von Cannibale, Gaspard La Verge, Raymonde Peste)? Has that changed since your debut?
As touched on in the last question, I (JVC) am the chief songwriter, so I’ll try and finish off a full album worth of songs, written in MIDI piano roll mind you, and then send them off to Gaspard who learns and records them, leaving Raymonde to add his final production bits at the end. Gaspard though has contributed with a song and riff here and there, but he also changes my original riffs sometimes to something he’s hearing which works better for him to physically play on guitar, and these changes always end up being more dynamic and interesting. Because I’m supplying him with very basic MIDI notes, he has the option on how to play each part too, so there’s still quite a lot of creative input from his end in the performance aspect of the recording.
12. You operate independently / unsigned — what are the advantages and challenges of staying DIY in your scene right now?
I guess the advantage would be that we have no timetable to adhere to and nobody above us to answer to, so we’re pretty much free to release whatever and whenever we want, diaries permitting. A downside though would be a restriction on exposure and merchandising, it can be hard to stand out and really push through in the sea of music, even though we’ve worked with a great supportive publicist and had some wonderful feedback from fans and publications alike, I imagine a label would push you out just that bit farther into the eye of the scene. But ultimately this is a project we do for fun and the love of the music and making albums, so we are extremely happy with where we are at in our current position.
13. What’s one concept, image, or lyric from this album you hope listeners absolutely won’t forget, the one that haunts you… or you want to haunt others?
The closing lyrics from “Nothing Left to Penetrate”, I’ll leave that for readers to discover.
14. Are there any last points or things you like to mention, do you have a message for the fans?
Thanks for your time and a great interview, huge shout out to people supporting this project, the fans who have bought shirts, music and streamed the albums as well, you guys are sick. Cheers! – JVC
Australian deathgrind act Gorotica are morbidly thrilled to release their second full-length album, “Daily Grind of the Medieval Age”, in both digital and vinyl formats through BandCamp from October 3rd.
Jon Von Cannibale – Voice/Composition
Gaspard La Verge – Guitars/Bass
Raymonde Peste – Drums/Programming
Stream the album in full and order your vinyl copy here:
https://goroticaculte.bandcamp.com/album/daily-grind-of-the-medieval-age
