Gun Outfit – Process and Reality | soundsfromthedarkside

Gun Outfit crafted some desert psych for patient souls.

There are records that arrive like statements, and there are records that seem to drift in from nowhere. Process and Reality, the new double album by Gun Outfit, clearly belongs to the second category. It does not rush to introduce itself, or try to impress by force. Instead, it opens a door onto a wide, dry landscape and lets the listener wander.

Gun Outfit have always been hard to place. Formed in Olympia, Washington, and now long based in Los Angeles, the band began with a rougher lo-fi and post-punk edge before gradually opening up into something looser and warmer. On Process and Reality, that development reaches its most immersive form. This is not an album of quick hooks or easy pay-offs. At around eighty minutes, it asks for patience and an openness to letting songs unfold rather than resolve.

The album was recorded back in 2020 on a ranch in California, while wildfires burned nearby. That background gives the record some of its strange power. It often sounds calm, but never entirely at ease, as if watching the world change from a distance without knowing what comes next. Gun Outfit are not making apocalyptic music in the obvious sense. Their darkness is quieter than that.

Unfelt Loss opens the record on one of its liveliest notes, with warm guitar lines and a gentle, almost deceptively catchy flow. By contrast, So Easy to Love slows the pace and draws the listener in more quietly. It is beautifully understated, fragile without being weak, and carried by Carrie Keith’s softly expressive voice. Teardrops (Classic Hell on Earth) carries that emotional directness further, while Whiplash drifts into a thicker haze, its vocals partly buried beneath the reverb. Because it is such a wonderfully mellow standout, Cherry Blossoms in Leschi deserves special mention. It’s loose but finely judged, and carried by the kind of understated melody that feels as if it could go on forever.

As the album moves deeper, it becomes stranger and more atmospheric. Backward Path, with its folky feel, seems to bend time backwards, while Don’t Remind Me goes full-on alt-country. Lilies of the Field and Lifelong Sellout, meanwhile, lean further into repetition and slow transformation. The instrumentation throughout the album is rich without becoming decorative. Autoharp, sitar, keyboards, electronics and other acoustic instruments all appear, but nothing feels forced.

At times, Process and Reality recalls Acetone, especially in the twilight patience of the guitars and the unhurried way the songs move. Yet there is also something of Giant Sand in the album’s desert looseness. Elsewhere, I hear traces of Mazzy Star’s dusk-lit melancholy and the easy nocturnal country of Cowboy Junkies. If these names ring a bell, you should not miss this release. That said, the album’s looseness and running time are both its strength and its weakness. It is easy to drift away from, and if you do, you may miss the handmade atmosphere that makes Process and Reality so compelling.

In the end, Gun Outfit have made an album that works best when you give it time and let yourself sink into its mood. Some paths are clear, but most vanish into dust. Stay with it, though, and Process and Reality reveals itself as a record about uncertainty and change. Reality, in Gun Outfit’s world, is not fixed. It keeps unfolding.

Label: Upset the Rhythm, 2026

Buy it here: https://upsettherhythm.bigcartel.com/product/gun-outfit-process-and-reality-pre-order

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