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JONN GAUNTLETIER is best known as half of the FL darkwave/dreampop duo Pass/Ages (Katuktu Collective) and former frontman of the post-punk band Ars Phoenix ( Etxe Records & Productions, Popnihil, Dead Tank Records / Distribution).
In his first solo outing, 2017's Self-Made Cell, Vol. 1 (available at
pass-ages.bandcamp.com ), Gauntletier blends various forms of post-punk, -wave, and industrial music in unpredictable ways that are entirely his own, from existential synthnoir ballads ("January Freeze" and "Sympathy Withers") and gloomy, reverb-shrouded polemics ("Goodnight Democracy" and "Logic as Violence") to jagged post-punk/synthpop gems ("Self-Made Cell" and "Transfiguration [My Logo]").
His forthcoming album, Horrorpop (2020), builds on this blueprint and uses the title as a genre statement for his body of work: Horrorpop is Gauntletier's term for fusing the tension and gravitas of horror film scores with the hooks and structures of electronic pop songs and lyrical themes from modernist, symbolist, and Gothic literature.
For Halloween 2019, Gauntletier teased Horrorpop with a limited edition single/demo, "Ghost in the Drum Machine," which he now follows up with a video for "No Exit" (premier TBA), a labyrinthine exercise in psychological/existential terror with lines inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon, and Walter Benjamin.
Ultimately Gauntletier's work continues to differ from more polished takes on modern wave, Goth, and industrial music by using professional as well as experimental/DIY production techniques to juxtapose hi-fi cinematics with lo-fi/mid-fi indie-synth, because the best horror has some grain on the footage.
released March 14, 2017