When going solo, your options are only as limited as your imagination, and with no one to hold you back, that’s enough reason for some to hoof out certain endeavors alone. That being said, there’s two kinds of solo projects – the first ones are the usual suspects, just a single person composing the material, and if they happen play live, they use pre-recorded tracks and / or hire a backing band.
Then there’s the second kind. The second kind is more of a spectacle, and generally they exist as a sort of point to be proven – the kind where the act’s not just composed by one person, but all the parts are simultaneously performed by that person.
It’s not always such a crazy idea when you think about it. There are acts in all kinds of genres that do this in 2025, from math and death metal to industrial and dub. You’ve got Mylets, you’ve got Author and Punisher, just about every DJ and busker we can imagine, hundreds more we’ve never even heard of and never will… but today, we can add Gull to the list with this exclusive preview of his upcoming album:
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It’s kind of the perfect capstone for spooky season. “Primordial Sin” is a bizarro blend of genre that actually lands a little closer to… Orgy, to our ears? Maybe Godflesh? Which is a huge surprise to be honest, it’s like Orgy and Godflesh meets Antimony and The Mantra Discord. You can hear that it’s brooding and atmospheric but also very DIY, leaning into the vulnerability one experiences when, you know, using every brain cell and available limb to entertain different instruments and rhythms. Gull also has some fantastic credentials – check them out below:
Gull is “best described as a drum; a living, breathing drum of flesh on fire that cries out assorted tongues of creatures past and delivers it from a single unique perspective; a communal music broadcast of blood and bile left as an offering on the altar of sound.”
Nathaniel Rappole’s solo music endeavor, Gull, was conceived on an endangered wildlife preserve in Front Royal, VA in 1999, and has been publicly active since 2007. Gull has recorded a 7″, 6 EPs, 3 full lengths, and has traveled vigorously—playing venues, on the streets, and in the wilds of Canada, United States, Mexico, Europe, Kenya, and SE Asia. Gull has toured in support of White Rabbits, Tres Mts, RNDM, and Saxsquatch, and has shared the bar arena with the likes of Silver Apples, Girl Talk, Deerhoof, Adrian Belew, Sleaford Mods, Tatsuya Nakatani, Zeta, Ruby The Hatchet, Panda Bear, Mdou Moctar, Dan Deacon, Godcaster, and Melt Banana.
In 2012, Gull was featured in a movie about music in Mexico called called Hecho en Mexico (1:06 in trailer), and in 2014 he produced and performed in a documentary on street/public music in Kenya (Street Muse Kenya), which premiered at The Fowler Museum at UCLA in Los Angeles, CA. In April of 2016, Gull performed and answered questions pertaining to his travels at TedX in Richmond, VA, and in 2017 he contributed an improvised performance to Grotesque Tables ii – Noah Wall’s anagramic reimagining of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies deck of cards from 1975. In December, 2019, Gull went to Thailand and Laos to film a new doc (Street Muse Thailand) in an ongoing series about musical ecology and culture around the world. In January of 2023 and again in December of 2024, Gull was an artist in residence at Stove Works in Chattanooga, TN and set up an impromptu recording studio while incorporating captured sounds of the city’s environment.
Gull’s new record Zugunruhe is out November 10th, and it’s his first in five years – pre-order it here.
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