Interview w/ Gary Mundy from Ramleh
By Nick Caceres
Published 09/17/2025
Though one can realistically create a "Magnum opus” within a decade of his or her career, it wouldn't be until the summer of 2025 when Gary Mundy would release what he reveres as his best work in his four decade spanning career, working with Anthony Di Franco and Stuart Dennison for six years to fine-tune the most idealized work of the Croydon bands’ legacy. “Hyper Vigilance,” is the 24th full-length, steeped in the bleakness of modern life and the cynicism and indifference that comes with this package. It’s a perplexing mixture of provoking synth and guitar work from Mundy is now able to push his decades of experience to the highest of peaks and the lowest of canyons.
As part of the first crop of the Power Electronics movement surrounding London entering the 1980s, Mundy would launch the label, Broken Flag, to facilitate the earliest of his own and friends releases, the most renowned being his band, Ramleh.
Ramleh were an unrelenting reality for music fans at the time who were faced with mixed feelings, whether that be the onslaught of tortured sounds and spoken word as well as the inclusion of fascist imagery from the Second World War utilized as a means to blur the line of what is deemed acceptable in artistic expression. Though this early period had to eventually dissolve due to its taboo presentation alongside Mundy entering his 20s at the time, Ramleh would be temporarily placed on hold before shifting into Death Industrial territory with the release of “Hole in the Heart.” Eventually, Ramleh would inherit Psychedelic and Noise Rock throughout the 1990s, topping off with “Boeing.”
By the time they returned in 2009 with “Valediction,” Ramleh had become a catalyst in Noise Rock and Power Electronics. Regardless of acknowledgement, artists have taken moves out of the Ramleh playbook of breaking past any remotely controlling boundaries in Experimental music.
The impact of Mundy’s talent was not limited to Ramleh either, with his involvement in other Power Electronic groups like Whitehouse, Consumer Electronics and Male Rape Group as well as playing guitar for the revolutionary Noise Rock band, Skullflower.
The following interview took place over email throughout August and September, where we discussed “Hyper Vigilance,” a plethora of past albums, and Mundy’s next steps following his boldest work to date. So far, this is the oldest discography covered in Nick C history and one of the most foundational artists I have interviewed. In short, a small milestone in my career. Enjoy. A fair warning that some of the album art you'll see in this interview depicts explicit sexual acts.
Gary Mundy (left) and Anthony Di Franco (right) performing as Ramleh in Geneva in 2024.
Photo Courtesy of Richard Reese-Jones from Viennese Waltz
Nick: Finally, after six years, you guys have returned to the forefront with “Hyper Vigilance.” Personally, I think that this is one of the best executions, not only in your own discography, but in regards to the music that’s been released so far in 2025. So to start, how do you think it ranks in your own body of work?
Gary: Thank you for those kind words. We think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done. It took a lot of time and effort to get it how we wanted it to be and I’m very proud of it.
Nick: What about it in particular brings you the most pride?
Gary: Just that we managed to create it. We’ve never spent that much time on a record before. I’m not sure if we would again. We just wanted to make those tracks sound as good as they could and not rush it.
Nick: What makes this album “bleak psychedelia” both lyrically and instrumentally?
Gary: That’s a term we use to describe a lot of what we do. Our music is mostly bleak as regards the subject matter and the sounds we use but there is also a kind of transcendent feeling in the tracks that feels psychedelic. I’ve found that is a constant throughout our records. There will always be those psychedelic sounds that we don’t particularly set out to create but they’re in our DNA somehow.
Nick: How does the name “Hyper Vigilance” tie into this?
Gary: It feels like everyone has lost their minds in recent years and everyone seems permanently braced for disaster. It's a bleak time. The psychedelia is just the noise we make which hopefully helps in some minor way.
Nick: Since, according to a recent interview with Burning Ambulance, you were the primary songwriter and composer for this track in specific, in what ways do you think the lyrical content on “Nothing Here But Fire” is representative of “bleak psychedelia?”
Gary: The lyrical content on that track is bleak but not psychedelic. It’s bleak as it’s railing against the bleakness of modern life.
Nick: How did you originally come up with the lyrical content and overall arrangement for “Nothing Here But Fire?”
Gary: I was experimenting with a spider capo on the guitar. It allows the capo to only fret certain strings and leads into unusual tunings. I came up with this circular guitar part I liked and the vocal melody just came to me. I had the title already but hadn't managed to use it. I took it to the studio and Anthony and Stuart added their magic and then the production and mixing changed it further. It was inspired by the increasing number of people appearing on TV who were spouting crowd pleasing rhetoric with nothing to it but inflaming of situations, with little knowledge of anything resembling a fact.
Nick: I’ll admit it, my favorite track on this album is “Forage.” Everything from the melodic drone that acts as a passageway in and out of the track, to the primal urgency found in the lyrics. How did you develop this track?
Gary: The section before the end drone section was a track that Stuart, Anthony and I had created around Anthony’s bass part and I heard a vocal melody in it and wrote the lyrics for that section. I’d always wanted to do a track that used the pattern of “Nagasaki Nightmare” by Crass. I didn’t want to make it sound like that. Just use the structure. An Ambient type of part that begins and ends the track. Two different vocal sections and a Noise interlude in the middle, so I wrote the words for the second part and Anthony and I created the drone parts and Noise breakdown all in the same key as the song parts so it would all sound logical. Anthony and I did the vocals. Stuart added drums to the second part and we put it all together and luckily it worked.
Nick: I should also ask the same about the longest track found here, “New National Anthem.” How did that composition come about?
Gary: That started out as a B-side to a single we were planning. Anthony and I decided to use an urgent, pulsing electronic drum part to work with and as we started to build the track, it was sounding better and better and we agreed it would be a shame to waste it and thought it could have a home on the record. We then started batting around ideas for different sections and it just kept growing until we realised it was going to be a 20 minute number. Anthony came up with the lyrics to bookend the song and then the rest would be instrumental. It was a beast that kept growing. We had to edit it down to 20 minutes.
Nick: In regards to the album cover, part of me was morbidly curious as to what it may be depicting and its possible dark origins. Then I saw that Jukka Siikala was the artist behind it which cleared that up swiftly. Still, how does it tie into “Hyper Vigilance?” Is it based on a real image that you weren’t able to use for legal reasons?
Gary: No. Anthony showed me some of Jukka’s work and we agreed on the images we liked and got permission to use them. It was the image that spoke to us both as ideal for the front cover. It felt appropriate for the mood of the music on the record.
Ramleh - "Hyper Vigilance" (2025) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: Funnily enough, you were not the only veteran artist in the broader scope of Noise Rock and Post-Rock to release an album this year. I wouldn't say that this band is contemporary in the same way as Whitehouse, but they came up around the same time. If you checked it out, what are your thoughts on "Birthing" by Swans?
Gary: I like a lot of Swans work, particularly the early stuff but a lot of the later records are good too. I’ve not listened to the new one all the way through yet, but I like what I’ve heard. Several people have seen a connection between the new Ramleh record and later period Swans. It wasn’t intentional but I’m not upset by the comparison as Swans are great.
Swans - "Birthing" (2025) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: To reel it back to the beginning of what would become Ramleh, were you originally born and raised in Croydon or did you move there later in your teens to pursue a musician career?
Gary: I’ve always lived in Croydon. In several different parts of it but always within the borough.
Nick: How did you learn the craft of Power Electronics? What previous knowledge translated into this more abstract form of instrumentation?
Gary: We had a Wasp synth that we mucked around with to make horrible noise. Then we saw the first ever Whitehouse show and they used Wasps. We thoroughly enjoyed the show and went and made our own music with the Wasp synth at the centre of it. We added organ, bass, clarinet and a lot of mic feedback and echo and created our own slightly psychedelic take on power electronics.
Nick: How did you and Bob Strudwick first meet? What type of relationship formed out of those early interactions that led to you forming a duo with him?
Gary: We were at school together and in a band together. A kind of Post-Punk band called A Cruel Memory. I mostly sang and played guitar. Bob was on bass and clarinet. Bob and I did Ramleh as a side project which became our main concern when a cruel memory broke up.
Nick: What’s the morphology behind “Ramleh?” Are there any earlier names you considered if you can recall?
Gary: I don’t think we thought of any other names. It’s a city in Israel where the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, was executed in 1962.
Nick: Although this was already touched on with the name of the band, to preface, a component in the earliest material was the emphasis on fascism, not in support unlike what certain Black Metal acts would pull not long after, but as a mere narrative in a scene already built on dangerous sounds. However, similarly to how other artists or entire scenes would play dress-up with themes deemed as taboo or outright dangerous, would you have considered your utilization of those ideologies to be more in line with anarchism or something else that I’m not even considering? Even at the time you were putting out these early tapes, did you feel as if this type of imagery and these thematic references were a temporary offshoot that you would have to eventually part ways with?
Gary: We had a fascination with the Second World War and the holocaust and decided to start with that as subject matter, with the idea that we would move on to other themes as we went along. We presented the work in an ambiguous manner. It wasn’t made clear if we were anti-Nazi or neo-Nazis. I think most people understood that we weren’t actually Nazis though. I stand by the music but the ambiguous imagery wasn’t as clever as we thought we were being at the time.
Nick: With that, it’s time to bring up the first ever Ramleh tape. What initially drew you to naming the debut album after the date, May 31st, 1962, being the death date of Adolf Eichmann and releasing it on the 20th anniversary since the event? How does the unrelenting weight of Power Electronics capture this theme?
Gary: It was actually recorded on the 20th anniversary, but it wasn’t released that day. We saw that the 20th anniversary was imminent and it seemed like a good strong subject to go with the powerful, aggressive sound we were making. Power Electronics seemed the ideal style to go with for the subject as it is so overwhelming.
Nick: Within 1982, you would also release, “Onslaught,” what was this album referencing in contrast to “31/5/62 - 1982,” were they linked together in some way or completely separate?
Gary: The tracks on that tape are about the holocaust from the perspective of the victims as opposed to the first tape which is about one of the perpetrators.
Nick: Another comparison between these first two albums is that while “31/5/62 - 1982” packed a tight punch, sitting under 30 minutes, “Onslaught,” while having the same structural integrity of pushing feedback and synthesizers to their limit and echoes of agony and hate, lengthened and extended tracks in a more variable manner. Do you feel like the first sign of compositional growth lies between the difference of these two albums?
Gary: I was happier with “Onslaught,” particularly the track “Phenol” which led to a much more haunting, devastating type of sound. It’s the start of the real bleakness in the music and it was somewhere I really wanted to take it.
Ramleh - "Onslaught" (1982) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: Around the time Ramleh was put on hold in 1984 the remaining material seemingly replaced the themes of fascism with brutal sexual perversion similar to what Japanoise artists were doing. What was the main driver in doing so, specifically in regards to your collaboration with Nails ov Christ and “Pumping?” Did this shift have anything to do with adding new members with their own ideas as to what Ramleh should be outside of your own artistic direction?
Gary: Nails ov Christ packaged that tape. The artwork wasn’t our idea. The music was generally not about sexual perversion, except for the track “Fistfuck” which was just too good a title not to use but I never felt comfortable with that area of subject matter and too many others were doing it already. “Pumping” contains two tracks, “Bite the Bolster” and “Fistfuck 2.” The latter was recorded with Matthew Bower and he wanted to call it that so I said, “OK.” “Bite the Bolster” is really called “True Religion.” An extract was called “Bite the Bolster” and was released on the compilation “Never Say When” but when Matthew did the sleeve for “Pumping,” he called “True Religion,” “Bite the Bolster.” It was about the connection between sex and religion and followed on from “Hole in the Heart” which was inspired by the death of Jean Genet.
Ramleh / Nails ov Christ - "A Penis Tense Not Penitence" (1986) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Ramleh - "Pumping" (1987) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Various - "Never Say When" (1987) compilation cover
Image Courtesy of Discogs
Nick: Before we leave this period of Ramleh, it’s best we cover what many consider to be the most revered album in the Ramleh discography, the original four-track version of “Hole in the Heart.” As of right now, it sits at number 16 in the Rate Your Music chart for the top albums of 1987 (Prince’s “Sign ‘☮︎’ the Times” being number one). Do you feel that this level of praise is justified?
Gary: I’m pleased with the level of praise. I don’t know if I think it’s deserved. It’s not really for me to say. It was hated at the time. It’s only since the 2009 reissue that it has grown in popularity. I was really surprised and continue to be.
Nick: Why was “Hole in the Heart” hated when it was originally released? Was it simply due to the culture at the time?
Gary: It was a major change of direction and fans of early power electronics didn't want that.
Nick: What was the recording process like during “Hole in the Heart” compared to previous Ramleh projects?
Gary: It was the first time I recorded solo at home. I only had a 2 track recorder and wanted to get as much sound as possible recorded so I had to set up the instruments so I could do vocals and play at the same time, or get two instruments playing together as I had so little scope for overdubs. If I made a mistake I had to start again.
Nick: I want to focus specifically on the final two tracks from the original cut, starting with “Product of Fear.” You’re already aware that I interviewed Yellow Swans earlier this year, however I did find some structural similarities to what they were doing twenty years later that could potentially point to what occurs on this track. Do you think that this track in particular had a lot of influence in how artists would use Power Electronics to build melodies and, therefore, a more cinematic sound?
Gary: “Product of Fear” was a piece I had written for the organ. I played it and then overdubbed a second organ reacting to the first one and not following the notes from the first. I was overjoyed with the result. I don’t know if Yellow Swans were aware of my records. I love what they do and do see a connection but they could easily have reached similar destinations to me without listening to my music. Because “Hole in the Heart” is talked about so much I imagine some will try and copy some of the ideas and I hope they take those ideas to interesting destinations that I never thought of.
Ramleh - "Hole in the Heart" (1987) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: What did you think of the “Bite The Bolster” fan-made music video by mushyrhum? Do you feel as if the themes hidden under the folds of distortion are up to interpretation? What does the term “hole in the heart” mean to you?
Gary: Fan videos will inevitably be inspired by the interpretation of the music by the person making the video. I’ve liked the videos I’ve seen. They generally capture the general mood well but obviously can’t be literal interpretations of what they’re about as I haven’t ever really gone into great detail about the ideas I had in my head. “Hole in the Heart” is obviously a medical condition but in the context I’m using it, it relates to feelings of loss and emptiness.
[mushyrhum]. (2010, May 3). Ramleh - Bite The Bolster [Video].
Nick: Toward the end of the 1980s, you would record and release the debut album for your band, “Skullflower.” How did the newfound style in Noise Rock on that debut LP help turn the Ramleh style on its head, reigning in a new era on “Grudge For Life?”
Gary: Skullflower wasn’t my band. It was Matthew Bower, Stuart Dennison, Alex Binnie and Stefan Jaworzyn’s band. I was asked to join as a second guitarist and played on the first EP and first album. I knew I wanted to make a new Ramleh album with Philip Best and being in Skullflower made me think about doing a heavy rock record but with no drums.
Skullflower - "Form Destroyer" (1989) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Ramleh - "Grudge for Life" (1990) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: I also noticed that “Grudge For Life” was part of the Vis a Vis Audio Arts catalogue which is run by Juntarō Yamanouchi from The Gerogerigegege and Nihilist Surfin' Group. I honestly think that most Ramleh releases would feel at home in that catalogue, however I must know how this arrangement happened!
Gary: Juntarō contacted me and asked if he could release the next Ramleh album. He didn’t know what he would get and amazingly was happy with what we gave him, even though it didn’t sound much like previous versions of Ramleh. He used to phone me late at night to discuss the record but he spoke virtually no English and I spoke absolutely no Japanese. It was very difficult to communicate but somehow we got through.
Nick: Seems like Juntarō was and probably still is a big fan of yours. In return, what are some of your personal favorites of his?
Gary: I usually like the first things I hear most. I think the first was “Senzuri Champion” which is great.
Vis a Vis Audio Arts logo
Image Courtesy of Discogs
The Gerogerigegege - "Senzuri Champion" (1987) album cover
Image Courtesy of Discogs
Nick: This era of Ramleh would end in what might be the most psychedelic of the discography, “Boeing.” When I mean psychedelic, a bulk of the album reminded me of a British Acid Mother’s Temple if you know about them, but I think what makes this one super special is the insistence that “all songs (are) recorded 'live'; 1st take, 1st ever versions, no overdubs." With that in mind, what did you think of the direction that Philip Best took with the synths on many of these improvised studio sessions, especially in the opening?
Gary: I loved what Philip did with the Moog. It took these kind of rock jams and made them into something other. It’s a bit more laid back than Acid Mother’s Temple but I did like them. Anthony had a couple of bass ideas we liked so we said let’s improvise around those. We asked Ian the engineer to switch on the tape and we just played. The results were beautiful. I did very little to them when we mixed it. It just sounded great as it was. We were just all in good form that day.
Nick: I should also give credit to your guitar work. It’s some of my favorite out of any Ramleh project. Were these softer, more mellow-ed out chords something you were meaning to incorporate into specifically a Ramleh album for some time even before “Boeing” or was it a spur of the moment during the actual recording itself?
Gary: Thank you. It was mostly spur of the moment. We were working on an album of more tightly written songs and getting frustrated so we decided to do these jams as a bit of relief. I did want one sad, laid back sounding track as I was listening to the Allman Brothers’ “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” and Philip and I wanted a similarly minor key memorial for Richey Edwards from the Manic Street Preachers, who was almost certainly dead. Anthony had the perfect bass line and the guitar melody just came to me and away we went and that became “A Rag for Richey.”
Nick: When looking at the album cover for “Boeing,” I’m curious about where exactly you sourced that sheet of notebook paper along with that cartoonish looking rocket?
Gary: I really can’t remember. Philip did that sleeve. You’d have to ask him. It’s to do with Thomas Pynchon working for Boeing.
Ramleh - "Boeing" (1997) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: It wouldn't be until the tail-end of the 2000s when we’d see another full-length from Ramleh. To date, this is the longest gap in the Ramleh timeline. What contributed to this nearly decade-long gap of new material?
Gary: We put the band on indefinite hiatus in 1998. It wasn’t until 2003 that we got back together in the line-up of me, Anthony and Martyn Watts. Philip was too busy with Whitehouse. We started recording as a three-piece noise rock band but got sidetracked by live shows and then recording the “Valediction” album as a 2-piece. So it wasn’t until 2009 that the first new rock record came out which was the Switchhitter 10 inch and then shortly after “Valediction” got released. That led to a lot more live shows and in-between we carried on working on the rock tracks. We ended up with so much material. We had to whittle it all down and eventually in 2015 we released “Circular Time” as a double CD. It’s effectively a triple album in vinyl terms, so although there were long gaps between records we effectively released four albums worth of material in that time as well as a lot of stuff nobody has ever heard.
Nick: I also noticed in an archive from the Broken Flag website from July 2007 that this album got delayed by a year, with an announcement stating that a “new album” would be released in 2008. What happened in-between making that announcement on the website and what would end up being the actual release date? By any chance, in this instance, do you regret announcing things too soon?
Gary: It’s probably best not to announce stuff until dates are definite but I imagine we genuinely thought that was when it would be out but there are often unexpected delays.
Nick: Back to the album. In many ways, “Valediction” was a step back in time to what Ramleh originally sounded like, that being Power Electronics over distorted spoken work. What allured you back to this sound? How did you approach Power Electronics and Harsh Noise differently in “Valediction” compared to something like “Onslaught?”
Gary: It came about because we were asked to do a show in New York in 2007 playing our old Power electronics material to celebrate our 25th anniversary. We decided to update the old sound and make it more powerful, more overpowering than the original sounds. It worked very well and it seemed a shame to stop after one show so we agreed to more and to making a brand new Power electronics album. It has some of the same elements from the early material but we added newer sounds to bring it up-to-date.
Ramleh - "Valediction" (2009) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: Finally, I’d like to spend miniscule amount of time talking about the album released an entire decade before “Hyper Vigilance,” that being “Circular Time.” Why did you guys decide to shift towards a more “Post-Hardcore” approach on this one?
Gary: We didn’t have any preconceived idea about what the music would sound like. We just knew we wanted to play quite heavy Rock and tried various things out. Martyn was a very different drummer compared with Stuart and it forced Anthony and I to play differently. We pushed the idea of a power trio quite a bit at that time and we always love doing things we haven’t tried before to see if we can do them convincingly. The sound of an album seems to suggest itself over time and I’m pleased that you hear it as Post-Hardcore. It wasn’t a style we talked about but if that’s what it sounds like to you then I have no issues with that. Other people heard Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and even ZZ Top.
Nick: How is time “circular” exactly? What types of philosophical concepts are your guys tapping into here?
Gary: It’s a birth to death idea, then taking in ideas of reincarnation or rebirth. The idea that many things are cyclical. The first track is “Re-Entry” about the Re-Birth, but the last is “Never Returner,” a Buddhist idea where reincarnation has played its part and it's time to move on to the next level. It was a framing concept to try and stop us just recording lots of unrelated tracks. It was quite restricting in some ways but without it, we would probably still be making that album!
Ramleh - "Circular Time" (2015) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: As we close out this interview, at this moment, what does the future trajectory look like for a band that has existed in some capacity for over 40 years? Is “Hyper Vigilance” the end? I hope not!
Gary: We’ve taken a year off from recording, as recording the last album was pretty intense and draining. I think we’ll know when it’s time to go back. We certainly have no plans to stop making records or playing shows.
Nick: What upcoming events do you want to alert the people to? Any chance you’re venturing out of the UK? North America? Asia? ANTARCTICA!?
Gary: For the time being we’ll be concentrating on UK and European shows but further down the line we hope to venture further afield.
Nick: Gary I’d like to thank you for this legendary interview. Any final words to leave us on?
Gary: Just that there are no plans for Ramleh to stop. There will be more records and live shows and reissues of hard to find old albums forthcoming and any new records will contain things we’ve never done before. As my late friend Simon Morris once said, “Ramleh always give you what you never knew you wanted.” I couldn’t put it better!