"Satanic Rituals Tend to Be Disappointing" But LA Drone Duo Robedoor Stand to Prove Otherwise

LA drone duo, Robedoor, summon music that is dark, distorted, and occult enough to evoke the underworld. If that wasn't enough, Alex and Britt Brown also have a penchant for smokey candles and low lighting at their shows, a flourish that critics compare to partaking in a satanic ritual, something that Beijing is conspicuously lacking.

Britt Brown also happens to be one half of renowned underground cassette tape and vinyl label Not Not Fun, which has been feeding America and beyond weird sounds for the past 15 years and remains one of the region's center-points of avant-garde and experimental music. The label, which Brown runs with his significant other Amanda Brown (who also owns the offshoot label 100% Silk and is a singer in her own group, LA Vampires), is home to beloved left-of-center acts like Les Halles, Sapphire Slows, Profligate, and of course, Robedoor.

Ahead of their gigs on Apr 4 at Zhao Dai and Apr 5 at School, the duo tell us more about how they came to incorporate Satanic rituals into their shows, the cesspool of existence, and the devil's ambivalence to the whole charade.

Do you think “Age of Sewage” (a track off 2017's New Age Sewage) is a fitting mantra for the times we live in? Please explain every stinky detail.
Alex Brown: While we do live in a pandemic dumpster fire, that song, and the band in general, aren't so topical. Obviously, there's plenty to say, and plenty that’s negative, about contemporary reality. But overall we're not really interested in reality. 

Britt Brown: Agreed. The "sewage of our age" is psychological as much ecological or political. Admittedly there are lots of days where you read or hear news that makes modern existence feel like spiraling into some doomed cyberpunk cesspool. But mainly our music isn’t about external conditions. The “age of sewage” is a subterranean designation. It's about the ascendance of waste in our spirits.

Some of your songs have been described as having “vocals that conjure a Satanic ritual.” Do you think the devil would be a fan of your music? What might be his favorite song, and why?
Alex Brown: I always imagine Satan being less into stuff than we give him credit for – beyond, like, torment and hellfire – but if I had to pick one of our songs that he might like I'd say “D.F.A. (Don't Feel Again)." I’ve always imagined that song as a demonic parade for the final triumph of evil over good.

Britt Brown: Recordings of actual Satanic rituals tend to be pretty disappointing – too liturgical and formal. But the vocals in our songs are intended to sound possessed and disembodied, summoned by the ceremonial power of the music. We used to play a jam years ago called “I Thought You Were The Devil” – I suppose he could take that as a compliment.

Likewise, your shows have also been described as a “journey into another realm.” Should we expect a similar setup at your Beijing shows?
Alex Brown: We've always treated Robedoor as a ritual. We're not really musicians, so instead of tuning guitars before a set, we create a centering/conjuring initiation. It’s extremely simple – we burn some ceremonial wood and let the smoke wash over us while we start to play – but it gives the performance a different weight. It makes it less about two dudes at a table of electronics and more about the sound as its own entity.

What inspired you to adopt such dark ritualistic performance styles in the first place?
Alex Brown: We’ve always felt for heavy music there needs to be a visual dimension to the performance. Over the years we’ve done different things. When the band was more of a noise/drone project we’d bring a bunch of amps and arrange them facing inwards, in a sort of Stonehenge configuration, and drape a tarp over the top, then play in the center of them, underneath. It sealed us in the space, so we’d be totally subsumed in sound.

Our goal is always to get lost in the set: to trance out and become as no-mind as possible. Having a ritual element helps make that experience more consistent for us. And hopefully, it looks cool, too. 

Robedoor will perform at Zhao Dai on Apr 4 and School Bar on Apr 5.

Want some Nordic free jazz instead? There's plenty of that too.

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Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
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Photo: occii.org, The Quietus