Know The Situation

Editorial Reviews
About the Artist
Like an unscratchable itch or an uneasy memory, the sonic escapades of Doofgoblin (nee John Gulino) are a thorn in the side of would-be easy listeners. Gulino produces dense and complex hyper-pop music that caters to nail biters and short attention spans, in which rural thematics penetrate a thicket of electronic techno-noise and order subtly disguises itself as mechanized chaos. His is not electronic music that builds to a climax after several minutes of predictable cues. Gulino bounces the listener from point to point in a rapid succession of razor-sharp melodies, hemorrhaging bass lines, and a veritable circus of percussive insanity. Tight orchestration wrestles with digital catastrophe; moments of anarchy and humor arise and disappear. Meanwhile, the dysfunctional relationship between noise and time plays itself out over a tortured, if grassy, field.

As a Connecticut youngster, Gulino absorbed the early sounds of Megadeth, Metallica, and Anthrax (often directly from a speaker placed on his chest as he lay in bed); later years found him turning to a diet of experimentalism through the likes of Ween and the Residents. In 1999, after earning a degree in guitar performance, Gulino moved to Oakland, CA to steep himself in the Bay Area’s strange brew of musical styles, flavored by a constantly changing panoply of local and visiting bands: Idiot Flesh, Melvins, Thinking Fellers Union, Matmos, and Kit Clayton. Gulino’s background in metal and noise improvisation, via several self-released albums of four-track acoustic guitar ditties, gradually evolved into a praxis of computer-based synthesis informed by Autechre and Aphex Twin. Yet the swirl of influences in Gulino’s electronic composition ranges widely, from the tasty pop bites of Thingy and Pinback to the ironic opacity of Steely Dan, from the carnivalesque atmospherics of the Residents to the DIY ethos of Oakland art-rock denizens like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Rube Waddell.

2001 saw Gulino self-release his first full-length as Doofgoblin, titled II, then light out for the territory of rural Virginia, trading scene for scenery. The effects of country living were apparent in his next release, 2002’s Char Lotties Ville, which blazed a spooky backwoods trail and got Doofgoblin noticed by Chapel Hill, NC-based Unschooled Records. After contributing a track to the new label’s compilation, Enter, Gulino delivered the full-length Marblebarrel in September 2003 and quickly followed with a CD EP, Album RL, in March 2004. The two garnered a raft of favorable reviews, with Angry Ape describing "a bastardised sound-clash of eccentric ideologies, processed noise and fractured samples" and Igloo Magazine declaring that "Gulino's definitive style is sure to raise the bar for up-and-coming electronic musicians". Gulino supported the Unschooled releases with tours on both coasts, playing with acts like I Am Robot and Proud, Random Number and Headphone Science, and unnerving audiences with extended improvisations, high energy album song renditions, and live sound experiments. Back home in Virginia, his increased reclusiveness resulted in an explosion of new material, ultimately to be known to the outside world as Know the Situation.

Recent months have seen Gulino channel his meticulous sense of composition and surprising humor into the terra incognita of video art, sure to be a bonus for Doofgoblin enthusiasts. Though active since 1998 in various online electronica communities, Gulino has always resisted the consumerism of the gearhead, as well as the product-minded critics who complain that Doofgoblin songs are "too short", preferring instead to subvert expectations about harmonic structure and the nature of time through a compositional process that renders almost everything obsolete as soon as it is completed.

Album Description
Doofgoblin knows the situation.

Cold now during Carrot Jab, the plate that warms your innards in the winter. Carrot Jab is a dish created by hollowing out a fresh and sturdy carrot then stabbing at bread until the core is packed with the cooked dough. Serve boiled or baked. I prefer baked. Try sitting outside in the winter with no shirt while the camera hurls lawn chairs and snow shovels at you.

Firing up the wood Stove Hot for heat, a drying ritual perfected in isolation. Pour wine from a large bottle, eat much too late, and the dust blew in sticking to my moistened skin – overheated house.

Squish Cheese and Mac around.

Autumn finished and took the crops with it. Kneeled and played at wooden stakes crossed with vines and fruit + tomato plants always remind me of marijuana. They’re dead now. No longer able to deny the Garden’s End and the bones I’ve left stuck in the clay for weeks now feel the dirt on my feet as I rise the roots from the bed.

I still don’t think I’ve ever unearthed a Crawdaddy and frankly I haven’t got the term right anyway so do I even deserve to?

I love this town but I hate the people in it, for the most part. I don’t hate the people in it I just don’t like it as a town, or maybe the sum of its parts. All I want is for that saxophone player up there to toot so hard he poops his pants on stage. The saxophone is completely replaceable through creative fm synthesis and chance operations. Dig?

As much as a) winter is my insulation, b) winner through isolation, and c) ice thinner is the sun poking through, I welcome it none the less. It’s Fun to be in the Sun.

You may spend Alldeigh trying to rub someone’s nose in it before you realize that you haven’t made it easy for them to carry a tune in the first place. Sorry for that, here, scrape off, sit down, I’ll point it out. Just listen for the stitz and hold onto the resonator. Don’t fuck it up this time.

My dad had an old truck that we’d drive through the woods collecting dead trees. When I was in the 9th grade I accepted a lumberjack coat that was sizes too big on me but the pattern fit my tastes. Years later I grew into the coat and nearly a decade more I parade in it proudly as I slug wine and wield a chainsaw.

Scissor scalp styrofoam baby head sleeping on my couch. Duermle, Unnerchyle. Awake! Awake! Ouch. Puddles of shellac on the mantle dusted cob and spider-like.

The woods are for Ticks and Chiggers are for the grass. You and I both know that if we walk naked or even barefoot across this yard we won’t be making any friends. One…two…three steps, thirty-something bites and who knows how many eggs now lie beneath my skin. Had I not eaten my fingers I’d be scratching bone by now. If only they ate fingers we’d have made friends.

I love to eat. I don’t eat. I don’t eat. When I am alone I do not eat and I won’t eat. It’s routine not to eat if your routine does not include eating. The perfect day is to awake having eaten and create having not to eat.

The Days as of Late – not a "to do" list. Tell it like it is, brother.

Five esses in Sonte Tone. One for sonte, one before tone, stone, and systems. The window is my frame. Outside the snow falls and at no single point is the picture the same. Snowfall only seems repetitive, but now there are six esses.

Say it, don’t spray peanuts from you trunk. Memory like a steel trample. Hey, I don’t mind talking about the Elephant in the Room!

Mold has lived. Friend has died. Kale has lived. Blood has died. For now, it’s over. I Miss You Allreadeigh.

Tracks:

Carrot Jab
Stove Hot
Cake Mac
Gardensend
Crawdaddy
Saxident Jazz Diaper
Fun in the Sun
Alldeigh
Timber
Duermle Unnerchyle
Ticks and Chiggers
HungerSweats
The Days as of Late
Sonte Tone
Forfla
Elephant in the Room
I Miss You Allreadeigh

Album Description

Doofgoblin knows the situation.

Firing up the wood Stove Hot for heat, a drying ritual perfected in isolation. Pour wine from a large bottle, eat much too late, and the dust blew in sticking to my moistened skin - overheated house.

Squish Cheese and Mac around.

Autumn finished and took the crops with it. Kneeled and played at wooden stakes crossed with vines and fruit + tomato plants always remind me of marijuana. They're dead now. No longer able to deny the Garden's End and the bones I've left stuck in the clay for weeks now feel the dirt on my feet as I rise the roots from the bed.

I still don't think I've ever unearthed a Crawdaddy and frankly I haven't got the term right anyway so do I even deserve to?

I love this town but I hate the people in it, for the most part. I don't hate the people in it I just don't like it as a town, or maybe the sum of its parts. All I want is for that saxophone player up there to toot so hard he poops his pants on stage. The saxophone is completely replaceable through creative fm synthesis and chance operations. Dig?

As much as a) winter is my insulation, b) winner through isolation, and c) ice thinner is the sun poking through, I welcome it none the less. It's Fun to be in the Sun.

You may spend Alldeigh trying to rub someone's nose in it before you realize that you haven't made it easy for them to carry a tune in the first place. Sorry for that, here, scrape off, sit down, I'll point it out. Just listen for the stitz and hold onto the resonator. Don't fuck it up this time.

My dad had an old truck that we'd drive through the woods collecting dead trees. When I was in the 9th grade I accepted a lumberjack coat that was sizes too big on me but the pattern fit my tastes. Years later I grew into the coat and nearly a decade more I parade in it proudly as I slug wine and wield a chainsaw.

Scissor scalp styrofoam baby head sleeping on my couch. Duermle, Unnerchyle. Awake! Awake! Ouch. Puddles of shellac on the mantle dusted cob and spider-like.

The woods are for Ticks and Chiggers are for the grass. You and I both know that if we walk naked or even barefoot across this yard we won't be making any friends. One…two…three steps, thirty-something bites and who knows how many eggs now lie beneath my skin. Had I not eaten my fingers I'd be scratching bone by now. If only they ate fingers we'd have made friends.

I love to eat. I don't eat. I don't eat. When I am alone I do not eat and I won't eat. It's routine not to eat if your routine does not include eating. The perfect day is to awake having eaten and create having not to eat.

The Days as of Late - not a "to do" list. Tell it like it is, brother.

Say it, don't spray peanuts from you trunk. Memory like a steel trample. Hey, I don't mind talking about the Elephant in the Room!

Mold has lived. Friend has died. Kale has lived. Blood has died. For now, it's over. I Miss You Allreadeigh.

Customer Reviews:

Igloo Magazine's REVIEW.......2005-12-03

Review by: Pietro Da Sacco at [...]
(04.08.05) John Gulino (a.k.a. Doofgoblin) has been quite busy over the past year or so, releasing leftfield electronic music that defies categorization. Marblebarrel (Unschooled, 2003) delivered subdued digital fluctuations while Album RL (Unschooled, 2004) manifested his knack for obtuse, mechanical compositions. Next to Songs From The Blue Ridge 7" EP and the now out-of-stock Live@Nature release, both on Unschooled, it's quite clear that Doofgoblin is out to make a drastic statement in his musical career.

Not only does he reveal the gravitational pull of digital experimentation, Doofgoblin also applies accentuated field-recordings buried within sampled electrical tones throughout his body of work. You can find evidence of this unique application on "I Miss You Allreadeigh," a 5-minute, syncopated kaleidoscope of slithering percussion that slowly decomposes --the hidden track tucked at the end drastically unleashes the digital fury of Doofgoblin's oeuvre. Watch out for that. Elsewhere you'll find particle fragments spread above clipped rhythms as featured on "Alldeigh" and the rather short-lived "Gardensend." But it's when Doofgoblin blurs the edges of his sound factory that you begin to realize why almost each track on Know The Situation is no more than 3-minutes in length. Rather than displaying elongated melodic constructions, the ideas nurtured within this album tend to unleash organic components that eventually form the entire product. In effect, knowing the situation, and accepting the strange electronic manipulations is only one piece of the fabric that is microscopic in nature but macroscopic in depth. Consider it an exercise in listening, and so, by digesting tracks like "Saxident Jazz Diaper" and "Stove Hot," you can easily appreciate the significance of such an album in this century.

By defocusing the ear, Doofgoblin has seamlessly created a world full of experimentation and odd permutations in sound engineering. It's the combination of extracted effects, chaotic minimalism and passionate reconfiguring that allows Know The Situation to unfold a myriad of unusually organic presentations. Mind-boggling.