The Jonny Halifax Invocation Interview: “Music is the best expression of our humanity”

The Jonny Halifax Invocation is an experience where colours almost override the music.

Following his initial explorations as Jonny Halifax and The Howling Truth, the multi-instrumentalist has unearthed his latest chapter, The Jonny Halifax Invocation. Whilst bringing other musicians along the way (including Duke Garwood and Rick Jensen), the collaborative element of the project has added layer upon layer to the cosmic blues odyssey that is essentially tailor-made for the outsider.

Through the project’s two EPs, Heavy Mediations (2021) and The Mountain (2023), and two long-players, Acid Bl​ü​ü​s R​ä​ä​gs : Vol. 1 (2002) and Acid Bl​ü​ü​s R​ä​ä​gs : Vol. 2 (2024), Halifax takes the listener on a voyage beyond his London-base to wider terrains that echo the kind of escapism that makes the mind wander to new corners.

Just by looking at the artwork of Acid Bl​ü​ü​s R​ä​ä​gs : Vol. 1 will tell you a story, as Halifax finds himself immersed in the sun-cracked desert blues; an array of humid drones and scorching twangs forming an apocalyptic backdrop that hits all the right emotional frequencies.

Earlier this year, the collective followed it up with …Vol. 2, and whilst enveloped in moody, meditative raga blues that possesses slightly darker undercurrents, this subtle shift showcases the ensemble’s constant evolution in personnel. A commune of musical voices based on shifting sands.

And that shift continues on their latest single, Thank You – the most far-removed track the project has given us, moving from the barren terrains in favour of the pantheon once dominated by Hendrix and The Stooges. Pure, scuzzed-out garage psych, and while on one hand it’s surprising, on the other it underlines what this project is all about. Always moving, always transcendental. The mission: to guide the listener through portals both leading to the past, the present, and the future.  

Sun 13: Do you remember the first record that really blew your mind and rewired your brain to influence the music you make today?

Jonny Halifax: “Probably the first record I heard that turned me onto the power of what could be done with music was Going Underground by The Jam. The energy and clearly articulated anger and the style of a band in their prime was a pretty potent door opening in the mind of a child of what was possible. But I think it was the first Monster Magnet five track EP that really blew my mind and has never really gone away in terms of a sonic benchmark. So, it was also a very nice moment when I put the first Invocation album out with God Unknown and Jason [Stoll] said he was sending it off to John McBain to be mastered.”

S13: When I listen to your music, hot and humid landscapes instantly spring to mind, and comparing it to the U.K. climate, it makes your music an escapist proposition. Is that part of the intention?

JH: “Hah, yeah I guess it must be at least a subconscious influence. Cinematically certainly and also the idea of Don Van Vliet retiring to the desert to make art and poetry hold a definite allure. So, it is escapism. It’s been interesting to see what comes out when you set out to make instrumental music. It was pretty liberating with the Acid Räägs albums to create sounds without the structure of drums or vocals, particularly the drums, creating a more expansive sense of space. But there is also a darker side to that which is the envisioning of a scorched, post collapse landscape which those tracks, as you can tell from the titles on the first volume, are imagining. Quite Ballard-esque.

S13: From the outside, it seems like you’ve had a busy year so far. You’ve just released the Thank You single. Can you tell us about it and the inspiration behind the track?

JH: “Yes, we’ve been storing stuff up and not quite finishing things, so there’s definitely been a feeling of the need to get stuff out… clear the ground for fresh growth kind of thing. Thank You was the first track when we put the live band together that came out of a studio jam. Playing the wrong thing that then became the very right thing. We played it live for a while as it formed being a longer track as the lyric idea came together – bit more of a Malcolm Mooney period Can type track. So, there were more verses which had to be shelved for the 2:37 length that it ended up when we booked the studio to record it.”

S13: Are you influenced by politics, and do they inform the ideas behind your music in any way?

JH: “For sure, more the failing of politics to deal with the real issues at hand. From the level of failing to deal with the basic needs of a population to function, to the ignoring of acute ecological issues due to vested corporate interests, and then imagining what kind of world we’re left with after civilisation inevitably collapses due to those failures of the political class to take any responsibility for the populations they claim to serve. So yes, unavoidably.

“Thank You is clearly a rant about the wider acceptance of a benevolent monarch and state that supposedly has our best interests at heart. The poisonous gratitude of our own subjugation. Sometimes you just have to get it out, hopefully with a bit of dark humour to raise a smile. The räägs albums have gone beyond ranting about what’s wrong to imagining what the end result of the wrong looks like.”

S13: Preceding Thank You, you released your second full-length, A​ç​id Bl​ü​ü​s R​ä​ä​gs Vol​.​2? Was the writing process similar to Vol. 1?

JH: “Vol.1 was obviously the first exploration of an idea so probably quite pure in that it was defining itself as it went along. Starting with mainly guitar improvisations played over drones, recorded and then edited down a bit. And then overdubbed to shape and create the wider sound.

“Vol.2 was a bit different, in that I wanted to bring in some different elements. It has more tracks that have the harmonica as the starting point. And there’s some drum machine loops in there too. So, it’s a much more layered creation. And then I invited my friend Alex McGowan (aka Captain Future) of Space Eko Recording Studios to mix it and introduce some more ‘dub’ like production to it. There are a few remixes he did which should see the light later in the year.”

S13: The more I listen to Vol. 2 in comparison with Vol. 1, and it feels a lot darker. Is that something you’ve thought about?

JH: “That wasn’t a conscious decision. They’re both coming from quite dark places in terms of kind of sonic cinematic imaginings of dystopian futures. Vol.1 came out of the end of the COVID lockdown time. Vol.2 probably has more transcendental musical reference points with Alice Coltrane and Terry Riley and some Moondog. So, there’s a bit more optimism in the opening and closing tracks on Vol. 2, but the ones in-between probably go darker in terms of their cinematic mood if you’re imagining a scene they might be scoring.”

S13: There are a lot of guest appearances on the new record, including your God Unknown label mate, Duke Garwood. Did you know him beforehand or was the label the nexus that brought you both together?

JH: “I knew Duke from way back. I met him when I was doing a one-man band called Honkeyfinger, and then I asked him to play clarinet on a few tracks for the project after that which was Jonny Halifax & The Howling Truth. So that’s where that link came from. It felt like planets aligning when Jason told me he was releasing Duke’s new album. It feels like all things find their place if you give them enough time.”

S13: Is the project something that you wish to keep evolving in terms of collaboration?

JH: “For sure. The Invocation live band presently goes up to eight people. This varies from show to show so there’s always an improvisational aspect to every gig. Not everyone rehearses together. I really like that. It feels very fertile creatively. Some of the players from the band play on Vol.2, and more will on the next one. The two albums have employed a very studio-based sound collage approach. We played Vol.2 live recently and it was quite different, so would like to record a live version of that. It is a continually evolving project.”

S13: Your fusion of raga, cosmic blues and jazz isn’t something that many people are exploring in the U.K. It got me thinking about God Unknown, and Jason’s eclectic selection of artists for the label. However, the common thread is that each artist seems to be an outlier in their own way. In that sense, do you think Jonny Halifax Invocation is a good fit for the label?

JH: “Yeah, I do. When I finished Vol.1, I wrote a list of labels to approach that I thought would suit it. God Unknown was top of the list, so I think it’s a perfect fit. I like that it’s a home for outlier sonic explosion. That feels like the right place to be. I can’t wait for the God Unknown 10-year birthday party show on 5 October in London.”

S13: How much do you think London influences your work?

JH: “I think it enables the widest possibility in creating, in the sense that there are so many amazing musicians and creative people there to work with and discuss ideas and turn them into a reality and to show them to people if you can shout loud enough. It’s increasingly a struggle to survive there as an artist, though. You need your side hustles to stay above water. Also, as I keep going on about, it’s not a big stretch to imagine how quickly it’ll all fall apart in a city like London, which is omnipresent in terms of the creative imagination.”

S13: Do you see The Jonny Halifax Invocation as an extension of your personality, or is it a separate endeavour from your life outside music?

JH: “Yes, it is necessarily. You have to put yourself and your ideas into it to feel it, I think. I think as an ‘act’, especially if you see us live, we’re pretty unfiltered in terms of individual personalities. We have a collective personality which comes out of the sounds we create on and given night. I aspire to the musical commune thing of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane or even the MC5, the music is the best expression of our humanity despite what side hustles you have to survive. This is it. Hopefully we’re projecting an honesty, an openness in experimenting with what’s possible and a human fallibility, and I’m really happy with that.”

Acid Blüüs Räägs: Vol. 2 is out now via God Unknown Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.