![Fantastic Negrito’s 'White Jesus Black Problems'](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/you-have-to-push-the-boundaries-of-your-creativity-and-challenge-yourself-sonically-and-thats-whats-exciting-about-this-alb.jpg?id=30008437&width=3456&height=3693&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C474%2C0%2C1017)
“You have to push the boundaries of your creativity, and challenge yourself sonically, and that’s what’s exciting about this album: It’s how uncomfortable it is.”
The triple-Grammy winner draws on DNA to weave recent family-history revelations, funk, rock, soul, blues, and mad sonic thrills into a musical and visual magnum opus.
About two years ago, after finishing his third consecutive Grammy-winner (2020’s Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?), Xavier Dphrepaulezz—aka Fantastic Negrito—did some research on Ancestry.com. As with many of the site’s patrons, the results blew his mind.
“I was like, ‘Holy shit!” he says. “I didn’t know I was a seventh-generation descendent of a white Scottish indentured servant and a Black enslaved person. 1700s? How did they do that? How did they live? No one killed them?’”
On his mother’s side, his ancestor was a woman from Scotland sold to work in 1750s colonial Virginia. She lived, somehow, in a common-law marriage with her enslaved Black husband. For Fantastic Negrito, that discovery was transformative. “I felt like my ancestors were tapping me, like, ‘Hey man, we’ve got this amazing story. We’re not on the left. We’re not on the right. We’re not entrenched in some ideology. We’re just two people from the opposite sides of the spectrum who found love together at a time when that was impossible.’ I am the result of that, seven generations later. I didn’t know who I was, but I guess I am exactly who I need to be.”
Fantastic Negrito - White Jesus Black Problems (Full Film)
On record, Fantastic Negrito’s main guitar foil is Japan’s Masa Kohama. When Kohama auditioned for the band, he could barely speak English and Fantastic Negrito was skeptical. He thought, “‘This is going to be quick. Let’s audition.’ And he blew me away. I was like, ‘Wow, maybe I was being prejudiced?’”
That story and the accompanying awe that sprang from unearthing his roots permeate his latest release, White Jesus Black Problems. But it’s not just an audio album—it’s a visual work of art that combines many of the songs’ videos into a seamless, Broadway-like production that’s essentially a companion film for the 12-song record. Both are a rich, high-energy explorations of identity, race, love, determination, freedom, and history.
But there’s another level to Fantastic Negrito’s artistry—something he wrestles with, ironically, because of his fabulous success. Winning a Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy for each of his last three albums left him with a conundrum: Should he give fans what they expect or forge ahead with his constantly evolving musical vision, wherever that may lead?
“I always start by myself. I have an $89 Rogue bass—it’s like an old violin bass. I start out on that a lot of times.”
He chose the latter. “I am going to answer to the music,” he says. “You can’t win three Grammys in a row and then not push to make something that’s outside the box, something that’s brave, outrageous, bombastic. It was like my grandparent’s story. That story’s real, and that meant the album had to be out there—as far as I could push—because my grandparents are obviously out there. You have to push the boundaries of your creativity and challenge yourself sonically, and that’s what’s exciting about this album: It’s how uncomfortable it is. The artists that I loved were always the ones that were a little uncomfortable. You hear the record and think, ‘Is it okay that this is happening?’ I always strive for that.”
White Jesus Black Problems oozes catchy melodies and is eminently singable, although it’s anything but conventional. It starts with “Venomous Dogma,” which eschews the standard verse/chorus formula and feels almost through-composed, morphing trippy psychedelia into a heavy, riff-centric romp.
“That song was fun,” Fantastic Negrito says. “I wrote that and thought, ‘My grandmother must have been a little girl in Scotland when, one day, boom, now you’re an indentured servant for seven years. What the hell?’ The tumultuous energy in that song—complete bliss turning to complete hardship, which must have been the same for my grandfather—I wanted to tell that story and capture that energy. It was very cathartic and that’s why it does what it does.”
While this Epiphone Dot wasn’t on the new album, Fantastic Negrito’s Epiphone Masterbilt Zenith was one of his go-to instruments for the sessions.
Other songs on the album, like the funky “Highest Bidder,” or “Trudoo,” which owes something to classic P-Funk (or maybe Prince), go in a very different direction. The same is true for the doo-wop feel of “Nibbadip” and the ’70s-era riffage of “Oh Betty” and “Man with No Name.” Yet White Jesus Black Problems feels cohesive because its story has twists and turns of the sort we encounter in real life.
“With me, it’s completely organic,” he says. “A song could start out with a beat that I clap, or a groove, or a poem, or with a guitar or piano or bass. I have no routine. The routine is to let the song write itself, let it happen. Tune into this channel—this frequency of the universe—and let it happen. Maybe most of it’s not great, but 10 percent of it may be pretty good, and that’s when you tell the story.
“One of the most important things to me as an artist or songwriter, regardless of genre—roots, Americana, the blues, whatever—is the stories the songs are telling. That’s it. Really. That gets lost, the stories, but it’s about the stories. People needed those stories to keep making it through the generations, whether it was bondage, Jim Crow, segregation—they needed the story, the music was the medicine. There’s a reason why African-Americans created all this music—all these genres for the whole world to enjoy: They had to survive some of the most challenging situations in this country, and the music has all that feeling because people were trying to save themselves.”
“I can’t paint these pictures without these other musicians. They have completely different tastes than I do, too, which is good.”
Part of keeping it organic is making sure he’s always prepared for when the muse strikes. Fantastic sleeps with an Epiphone Masterbilt acoustic-electric next to his bed and always has an iPhone on hand to record ideas when they hit. “I am full of ideas,” he says. “I wake up in the middle of the night—I live on a farm—you walk out and clean out the chicken coop and then, ‘Oh no! I got something!’ I always have my guitar. That Epiphone is a good friend. It’s fed me and my tribe.”
When he gets to the studio, he scrolls through the audio files on his phone, picks out the gems, and presses record. “I always start by myself,” he says. “I have an $89 Rogue bass—it’s like an old violin bass [the instrument makes an appearance in the video for “Venomous Dogma”]. I start out on that a lot of times. I start tracking, lay down everything, and then I get the boys in, because I am really a songwriter first.”
But he’s also an arranger with a keen ear for orchestration and interwoven parts. Layers of guitars—and an occasional Minimoog—weave their way in and out of the various songs off White Jesus Black Problems. And once a song starts taking shape, his artistic vision is crystal clear. “That’s what makes the records go fast and easy,” he says. “But I can’t paint these pictures without these other musicians. Their contribution is massive and I give full credit to them, always. They have completely different tastes than I do, too, which is good.”
Fantastic Negrito’s Gear
Fantastic Negrito atop his preferred amplifier, an Orange TremLord 30, with a P-90-stocked Chapman T-style.
Guitars
- Epiphone Masterbilt Zenith acoustic-electric
- Gibson Les Paul Signature semi-hollow goldtop
- Chapman ML3 Pro Traditional
- Gibson Hummingbird
- ESP 400 Series T-style
Strings
- DR Strings .009 sets
Amps
- Orange TremLord 30 combo
Effects
- EarthQuaker Devices Sea Machine V3 Chorus
- EarthQuaker Devices Park Fuzz Sound
Masa Kohama plays lead guitar on almost every track on the album, while he and Fantastic cover rhythm-guitar chores together. They’ve been a guitar team for almost 25 years, since a young Xavier Dphrepaulezz first signed to Interscope Records (as simply Xavier) for his ill-fated first outing with a major label, 1996’s The X Factor.“
I was looking for a guitar player who could play all the different styles that I play and, boom, here comes this Japanese guy who can barely speak English,” he remembers. “I thought, ‘This is going to be quick. Let’s audition.’ But he blew me away. I was like, ‘Wow, maybe I was being prejudiced?’ I didn’t expect that from him. He’s such a great player, and I’ve never made a record without him.”
The pair gets together to write and bounce ideas off one another in the same room at least once a year—Kohama is still based in Japan—and they share files across continents the rest of the time. But after so long, their natural synergistic relationship is at a point where they know what to expect. “We can read each other’s minds. Absolutely. He knows and I know, and that’s how it goes.”
Fantastic onstage with a slope-shouldered Epiphone Masterbilt dreadnought.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Kohama doesn’t tour with Fantastic, though. That job is filled by Tomas Salcedo, who’s been on the road with the group for years. He’s also the guitarist you see in most of the live clips and videos. He makes an appearance on White Jesus Black Problems, too.
“I always let Tomas get on the records, and he brings something different than Masa,” Fantastic Negrito says. “He’s on the song ‘Virginia Soil,’ and I needed him on that song because he does less a lot, and that’s amazing. That song is empty, open, beautiful, and a lot of it is breathing.”
Fantastic’s affinity for “less” applies to his tonal approach, as well. He primarily uses just a guitar, an amp, and mics. Pedals are not a big part of his sound—although he does have two EarthQuaker Devices units, a Sea Machine V3 Chorus and a Park Fuzz Sound, that sit on his mixing console for use in post-production. But for the most part, he records guitars clean.
“I tell Masa to play completely dry. No effects. I say, ‘Even play direct if you have to,’ because then you can reamp it. Or you can use board distortion. I love that—where you’re just pushing it from the board. I’ll use the mics that are in the piano to catch part of the guitar. I love reamping. You can be more creative and get more interesting sounds.”
But, again, those great sounds, those recording techniques, and that gear are just tools for conveying the all-important stories, whether they’re about reaching majestic heights or sinking to painful lows—like the debilitating car accident that put Fantastic in a coma for three weeks and cost him both his first record deal and much of the use of his right hand. That he rekindled his will, stormed back from career death, and can still lay down an infectious guitar groove makes him a bona fide inspiration. Perhaps it’s because he never ceases lookingfor inspiration from something he feels was always embedded within him.
“I hate to keep talking about my seventh-generation grandparents, but it’s from them,” he says. “You find a way. The most challenging situation, the most insurmountable odds were against me to play again, but I found a way. I figured out all this came from these people—these incredible people who lived in the 1700s. I feel there’s something about DNA and blood, and I always had this attitude that no matter what, we can do it. And that’s from them.”
Fantastic Negrito performs a short acoustic set and talks about the family history behind White Jesus Black Problems at South by Southwest 2022. Note the technique he has developed with his accident-damaged picking hand, which he calls “the claw.”
While Annie Clark was named the 26th greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023, she couldn’t care less about impressing an athletic stamp on either her sound or her image.
On her eighth studio release, the electroacoustic art-rock guitarist and producer animates an extension of the strange and singular voice she’s been honing since her debut in 2007.
“Did you grow up Unitarian?” Annie Clark asks me. We’re sitting in a control room at Electric Lady Studios in New York’s West Village, and I’ve just explained my personal belief system to her, to see if Clark, aka St. Vincent, might relate and return the favor. After all, does she not possess a kind of sainthood worth inquiring about?
St. Vincent - Flea (Official Audio)
But the sincere curiosity I sense in her question is charming. It hasn’t been mentioned in our conversation yet that she was partly raised Unitarian Universalist (the other part, Catholic), and it’s as if she’s innocently excited that there might exist a friendly connection between her and I, the sunny, “nonchalant” journalist who’s doing my best to hide a fair level of enthusiastic fandom and admiration for her.
“I was raised Catholic, actually,” I reply.
“I love the saints,” says Clark. “Gimme a Caravaggio any day. And Mary as a figure; I’ve always….” she trails off, wistfully. “I’ll always love Mary.” (This adds up, as under her long black coat, she’s wearing an oversized t-shirt with an icon of the Virgin Mary on it, where the religious figure also happens to be depicted as a Black woman.)
Of course, St. Vincent—who took her stage moniker from a Nick Cave lyric—isn’t meeting me at Electric Lady to muse on spirituality. We’re there to talk about her latest release, All Born Screaming—her eighth studio full-length. It also happens to be her first entirely self-produced record, and with this new 10-track collection, Clark feels a sense of celebration about her growth as an artist over the course of her career.
All Born Screaming, which grew out of multiple hours-long solo jam sessions full of “bleeps and bloops,” is St. Vincent’s first entirely self-produced record.
“I’m very lucky to be in a position where more people care about what I do now than what I did on my first record,” she shares. “Like, thank god that I didn’t just have one that people liked, and then fell off the map. I got to grow as an artist and carve out whatever little lane I have in the world by getting to follow the muse and make music that lights me up, that I believe in.”
I would agree that All Born Screaming is a rather shiny jewel to be added to St. Vincent’s experimental, electroacoustic, art-rock crown. It’s ethereal and supernatural, which is to be expected from Clark, but this time, there’s something a little different in the air. The opening, “Hell Is Near,” conjures an illusion of billowing and enveloping fog, swallowing up the audience à la Stephen King. Her floating, sneakily adept vocal at times echoes that of her good friend Carrie Brownstein on Sleater-Kinney’s release from earlier this year, Little Rope, creaking and reaching with pangs of metaphysical desperation.
“Thank god that I didn’t just have one [album] that people liked, and then fell off the map. I got to grow as an artist and carve out whatever little lane I have in the world.”
The album’s first two singles, “Broken Man” and “Flea,” are framed by methodically chugging bass lines that nudge ominously at the edges of your shadowy mental recesses. (On “Flea,” Dave Grohl guested on drums.) “It was pouring, like a movie / Every stranger looked like they knew me,” she sings on “The Power’s Out,” calling David Bowie’s “Five Years,” the 6/8 opening track on Ziggy Stardust, to mind. Towards the close of the record, “Sweetest Fruit” and “So Many Planets” proudly, shamelessly, groove.
And guitar? It enters with an eerie George Harrison-esque jangle on the second verse of “Hell Is Near,” and, throughout the rest of the record, guides with punchy, distorted leads, accents, and welcome interjections. Clark, who was named the 26th greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023, has rarely imprinted much of an athletic stamp on her music, in terms of shredding—which she’s shown she can do, but, almost as an aside to her more popular artistic definition. Instead, she moves the instrument in and out of her compositions in streaks of indigo, threading it like dendritic capillaries through a Junoesque, avant-psychedelic, gas-giant planet of sound.
Clark was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and moved to Dallas, Texas, with her family when she was 7. There, she developed a tight-knit group of friends with whom she’s still close with today.
Photo by Alex Da Corte
St. Vincent has an unshakeable confidence about her, in both her physical presence and creative exploits. She explains how, in her solo production pioneering for the making of All Born Screaming, she built out her home studio, got a Neve console, set up her modular synths and analog drum machines, and “finally figured out how to MIDI clock everything in time, which was its own hellscape.
“But then, [it was] playing with electricity,” Clark continues, “because electricity through analog circuitry.... I think it has a soul. Ultimately, you’re harnessing chaos. You’re like a god of lightning or something, you know?” she laughs.
“I would just jam for hours, making kind of post-industrial music, and then I would go back through and listen and go, ‘Ooh, well, this is a three-hour jam of bleeps and bloops. But, these four seconds are something so cool that I want to build a whole song around them,” she shares, then vocalizes some of the melodies in “Big Time Nothing,” “Broken Man,” and “Sweetest Fruit.”
Elaborating on her production approaches, she says, “Psychically, I’m obsessed with people like Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry or J Dilla, where all of the effects are tactile. What I find exciting is making big decisions and then printing things, or the sound of something. ’Cause then it’s like you’re building a house on rock rather than sand,” she shares, referring to recording effects with the raw audio signal, as opposed to applying them after the signal is tracked, or in post-production. After further reflection, she concludes, “I think producing the album myself was like managing various egos, but all of the egos were in my own brain.”
We’ve been chatting for about half an hour, and St. Vincent mentions that she brought some snacks, if I want any. (I politely decline, as I’d rather not hear chewing on the recording of the interview when I listen back.) When I presume that she must have a strong sense of self-actualization at this point in her career, she gently counters, “But, I think, you don’t get the confidence without walking through some fire of self-doubt. As I grow more proficient, have more expertise, or get better at my instrument in various ways, music as a whole is more mysterious, mystical, and otherworldly than ever,” she adds. “So, understanding that feels more like it’s receding in a beautiful way, or opening in a beautiful way, while … ‘Okay, great, I know how to compress this better.’”
“What album of yours, excluding All Born Screaming, do you feel the most proud of?”
“Because I’m putting a set list together [for the All Born Screaming tour], I went back and listened to Strange Mercy. There are moments on that, tracks like ‘Surgeon,’ that I’m like, ‘Fuck yeah! That rips! I had no idea!’” she exclaims. “And that’s not always the case. You go back to certain songs, and you’re like, ‘Uh, I’m not sure I executed the vision here, or if this was … a good vision to have.’ But yeah, because I was so broken and bereft at that particular period of life.... I think you can hear it.”
St. Vincent's Gear
This shot was taken a year before the release of St. Vincent’s 2015 self-titled album, where she wore a hairstyle similar to this one on the cover. It was also four years before her signature Ernie Ball Music Man guitar debuted.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography
Guitars
- Ernie Ball St. Vincent signature models
Amps
- Marshall 1974X
- Roland JC-40
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046)
- Ernie Ball Nylon Light
Effects
- Rig controlled by RJM Mastermind and Gizmo loop switchers
- Hologram Chroma Console
- Empress Echosystem
- Universal Audio Golden Reverberator
- Electro-Harmonix Small Clone
- Malekko Diabilik
- EarthQuaker Rainbow Machine
- Boss VB-2 Vibrato
- JHS Colour Box
- Fulltone Distortion Pro
- Ibanez Modulation Delay II
- Boss SY-200
- ZVEX Fat Fuzz Factory
- Chase Bliss Mood
- Chase Bliss Habit
“You told The Guardianrecently, ‘Artists and songwriters are in some way writing about the same thing over and over again: sex, death, love.’ Do you have any other thoughts on that?” I ask.
“Oh, did I say that? Sure!” she chimes, laughing. “Maybe I did!”
“My favorite art has always been stuff that channels the stream-of-consciousness mode of thinking. Do you know Mirror by Andrei Tarkovsky?”
“No, I haven’t … read it?”
“Oh, it’s a film.”
“Seen it!” she amends, smiling. “But, understanding that sort of time-scape dreamscape multiverse…. I feel you.”
“I think Yes’s Close to the Edge is something like that; it’s one of my top 10 favorite albums.”
“I love Yes. Close to the Edge is one of my favorite records as well,” she says, and sings the melody to “II. Total Mass Retain” from the 18-minute-long title track. “And Chris Squire’s bass tone is perfect. It’s perfection on that record.”
“Absolutely! But I admit, I’m really just into early-’70s Yes.”
“Oh, 100 percent. ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ just reminds me of … being at the Texas state fair and my friend giving a hand job on a Ferris wheel to a carnie.”
On tour for 2018’s MASSEDUCTION, Clark plays a model of her EBMM signature with a leopard-print pickguard.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/tinnitus photography
While Clark shares that at certain points in her life, she has delved into practices like transcendental meditation, she says that today, the non-musical habits that best cultivate her creativity come down to activities as simple as working out, “so I don’t feel crazy,” and doing chores. “Oh, that’s so depressing,” she laughs.
And, while she doesn’t subscribe to any kind of organized religion, St. Vincent is entranced with a kind of spirituality behind making music. “I find music to be incredibly mystical, and that songs become prophecies,” she reflects. “Artists have, in the best-case scenario, an antenna up that makes them a kind of psychic mirror to the society that they live in, right? Almost like a weathervane.
“There have been times that I have written something that in a way prepared me for, or, predicted something that I was about to go through, in very specific, very witchy ways,” she continues. “I’m not a person of like, faith faith, but I have known certain things in ways that are not rationally explicable.”
“I think producing the album myself was like managing various egos, but all of the egos were in my own brain.”
Musicians have a common language of creativity, in that for most, inspiration tends to emerge unpredictably, out of the ether, or perhaps as the result of neurons firing haphazardly. But they do seem to each have an individual way of keeping track of their ideas, whether that involves writing them down or committing them to memory; usually, it’s a balance between the two. “I’ve had the title ‘All Born Screaming’ since I was 22,” says Clark. “I knew that I was going to use it at some point, but I don’t think I was worthy of explaining the complexity or talking about it until this record.
“I don’t know how records get finished,” she elaborates. “But I trust the process enough to know that, if you just put in the hours and stick with it, eventually the big picture will reveal itself to you. I describe the process as making perfect little puzzle pieces—making sure every edge is perfect and ornately drawn, and I don’t know what the big picture is until I’ve finished every single puzzle piece. And that’s when I go, ‘Oh, this is what this is [laughs]. Nobody told me!’”
While Clark’s guitar playing got off to a typical start—the first couple parts she learned were the opening chords to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the iconic riff from Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung”—her evolution as a player has made her increasingly savvy at envelope-pushing. Even on her 2007 debut album Marry Me, a singer-songwriter project at its core, the songs “Now, Now” and “Your Lips Are Red” lean toward the progressive territory she’s mined deeper and deeper since. It would be fair to call her soloing and style of arranging daring and subversive; she bends sound and songform as she sees fit.
“Artists have, in the best-case scenario, an antenna up that makes them a kind of psychic mirror to the society that they live in.”
By 2011’s Strange Mercy, whose collection includes the distinctively electroacoustic-yet-guitar-enforced tunes “Cruel” and “Surgeon”—which, as previously asserted, “rips!”—Clark’s guitar is cloaked in fuzz and couched in ambience and synthesizers. And, in the 13 years since, it’s pretty much stayed loyal to that description. The oddest thing, however, is this duality: That shrouding somewhat precipitates her guitar’s erasure from the foreground of the listener’s earscape, while yet maintaining its stitching throughout the songs themselves. I’ve listened to plenty of her discography, all the while forgetting it right as it’s there. Perhaps, the synths are the furniture, and the guitar is but a centered lamp, unifying the room’s elements within the same bath of light? But, personally, I have not been able to answer the question “How?”
Regardless, St. Vincent couldn’t care less about her image or sound as a “guitarist.” If she has ever made any kind of effort to “prove” herself on the instrument, I haven’t come across a record of it. An educated ear will recognize her august aptitude in her avant-garde playing style, and she has left it at that. In my eyes, this makes her an actual hero in an industry saturated with overcompetition and machismo.
“Sound has incredible meaning,” she summarizes, and the end of our conversation. “It led me to songs, and when you trust that you just will follow the things that will light you up inside, then you’ll be okay.”
YouTube It
On Later… with Jools Holland, St. Vincent rocks her Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitar in “glam tuning,” where all strings are tuned to the same pitch, enabling her to create a synthesizer-like effect with the help of a slide.
Available in 4-string and 5-string versions with unique finish options. Each purchase includes a certificate of authenticity signed by Wimbish.
Wimbish collaborated with Spector's USA Custom Shop to create the DW-4 and DW-5 models, echoing the iconic instruments that have been favored heavily throughout his recording and performing career.
These signature basses faithfully replicate Wimbish's originals, down to the smallest details like neck contours and nut widths. Customized EMG pickups, developed in collaboration with Wimbish, capture the distinctive sound that has shaped his monumental musical impact. These models invite players to explore the feel and response that have defined Wimbish’s signature style over the years.
Available in 4-string and 5-string versions, each model boasts unique features & finish options. The DW-4 comes in Amber Stain Gloss and Black Stain Gloss options, while the DW-5 offers Dark Blue Stain Gloss and Faded Natural Gloss. Every purchase includes a certificate of authenticity signed by Doug Wimbish.
Wimbish comments, “Spector took the time to get every little nuance right, and that to me is dedication and being thoughtful enough to know ‘I want to nail it,’ and they did. I’m able to pick these instruments up for the first time and play them like I’ve already had them for years.”
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Spector: The Doug Wimbish USA Signature Series
Spector Euro 4 LX Doug Wimbish Signature Bass Guitar - Amber Stain Gloss
Euro 4 LX Doug Wimbish, Amber Stn GlsAn uncommon approach to shaping vintage fuzz sounds results in unexpected surprises.
Unique fuzz sounds with mid-’60s spirit and unconventional tweakability. Beautiful and well-built.
Many players will find basic ’60s fuzz sounds elusive.
$249
Fish Circuits Lunatique
fishcircuits.com
Some things you can take at face value. Consider the Fish Circuits Lunatique fuzz. Fish’s choice of “Lunatique” as a name for this beguiling gated, ring-modulating, octave fuzz is not an empty promise. Many of the savage, spitty, crispy, crumbly sounds that emit from this unit sound like a little berserker wrestling bats in the belfry amid a swarm of bees.
But if tone madness is among Lunatique’s first orders of business, there are also many tones here that sound merely nuts rather than rabidly bonkers. The four simple controls interact in ways that produce unexpected, unique results, and its voices vary wildly depending on the pickups and guitars you pair it with and where you set your guitar’s tone and volume controls. For any player, producer, or recordist interested in fuzz’s potential beyond the same old beer-commercial hook or solo, the super-stylish Lunatique is a fun, intriguing alternative that has roots in mid-’60s tonalities and branches that spread much further.
Ground Control to Sonic Station
The Lunatique looks and feels awesome. The bright blue enclosure evokes the candy-store appeal of old Colorsound pedals, and I love the screen-printed metal control panel. The Lunatique has the comforting heft of vintage electronics, too. But while it might look like a space hog, the Lunatique is only about a 1/4" wider than a Boss pedal and about 30-percent longer. The control array looks simple, and for the most part it is. But unless you are unabashedly spontaneous and cool with mayhem and unknown outcomes, the chaos control demands a bit of study. It’s the key to the pedal’s multiple personalities.
Essentially, it enables you to dial in how much octave and ring modulation interacts with the fuzz circuit. As you add more octave, your guitar signal hits the fuzz circuit less hard, which also has the effect of activating the gate a little sooner. That control dynamic and the pedal’s response will find many mistaking the chaos control for a bias knob. The chaos pot also controls a low-pass filter, situated after the fuzz circuit, that cuts high frequencies as you turn it clockwise. In a basic sense, the left side of noon has little octave-up content, a heap of treble, and the fuzz is less likely to gate. On the right side of noon, you hear a lot of octave and ring modulation, the treble is less spiky, and the fuzz will gate a bit more. In the many overlapping layers of these effects, there are scores of fuzz colors to explore.
"In the Lunatique, neither gain mode is especially ‘nice.’"
A Balm for Option Fatigue
One of my favorite idiosyncrasies in the Lunatique’s design are the 2-position Fuzz and Body switches which take the place of the variable knobs most builders would use for gain and tone. According to Mike Poisson (the big fish, if you will, behind the Lunatique), this was partly the product of aesthetic concerns—a preference for switches where possible rather than a clutter of knobs. But in the case of the gain switch, the two positions represent specific gain levels that felt and sounded right to Poisson. He found that a rotary knob offered little additional nuance. And personally, I wasn’t left wanting for additional levels other than the two provided here. It’s an interesting, effective solution.
Those familiar with Fish Circuit’s Model One overdrive will find parallels with that pedal’s “nice” and “nasty” modes. Though in the Lunatique, neither gain mode is especially nice. Both bristle with attitude and a punky, feral mid-’60s personality. In the lower-gain setting and in the thinner body mode, the fuzz tends to sound ferocious without feeling dominating. It’ll slot easily into a distinctive place in most mixes and offers cool contrast for tasks like doubling bass riffs. Garage-psych nuts that quest for the gnarliest lo-fi fuzz tones from the deepest recesses of the Pebbles compilation LPs will be in heaven too.
In the full-body mode, the pedal is arguably at its most conventional. Single-note lines sound fat and complex, if spitty. Fleet-fingered solos that don’t leave space for the splintered decay artifacts you hear in more spacious contexts, benefit from the sharp, defined attack and less corpulent, overtone-rich sustain, which lends clarity to otherwise filthy melodic leads. Punky power chords also benefit from the tighter decay and can sound powerful, extremely focused, and very much in their own lane in a mix. I would love to record a really nasty garage-hardcore record with this sound.
At most settings, pitch irregularities—even those from finger vibrato—will cause the signal to fracture and crumble sooner. On the other hand, minimizing vibrato lends many tones an almost synth-like linearity that sounds pretty cool in contexts apart from traditional rock guitar, particularly when you add volume swells. Such sounds can be spooky and alien stuff, particularly with modulation effects. Oh, and it bears keeping in mind that the Lunatique will get loud. There’s no shortage of volume ceiling here.
The Verdict
As I said at the top, “Lunatique” is a fair representation of what this fuzz is and does. By no means will it be every player’s bag, and the reader should take my relatively enthused scores with a grain of salt (I like chaos). But players that like the attitude of a Jordan Boss Tone, Maestro FZ-1, or Mosrite Fuzzrite yet are weary of canonical sounds, and who prefer more tunability, more surprises, and more distinctive tones will savor the way the interactive controls for this unique circuit can mutate and recast the mid-’60s fuzz template. That it’s a truly beautiful little pedal, too, only enhances its wild appeal.
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