A surreal doom-folk meltdown featuring Butthole Surfers’ Paul Leary, Gus Englehorn’s latest single, “Metal Detector”, is available now across all platforms.
Accompanied by an evocative music video directed by Estée Preda, “Metal Detector” is a spellbinding exploration of Englehorn’s singular vision, melding doom-folk intensity with absurdist storytelling.
Drawing inspiration from a friend’s tipsy late-night conversation with a talking shrub in Portland (yes, you read that right), Englehorn has crafted a hypnotic tale of chaotic beauty. “This one is pretty dada,” Englehorn explains, “but I imagine someone trying to play metal in their garage and one of their neighbors busting in the door and unplugging the amps.”
Adding to the song’s eerie, dreamlike quality is the spoken-word cameo from Butthole Surfers guitarist and legendary producer Paul Leary, who also mixed the album. Englehorn, a lifelong fan, recounts how the collaboration came to life: “In the ’90s, I was standing outside a Sam Goody in Alaska and heard ‘Pepper’ for the first time—I was blown away. Working with Paul was like a dream come true.”
Preda’s visually stunning video brings “Metal Detector” to life with her signature artistic flair, presenting a surreal world that mirrors the track’s nightmarish yet oddly humorous essence.
Englehorn will kick off his 2025 tour with a special album launch event on February 6th at Bar L’Escogriffe in Montreal during the Taverne Tour. He will also head to Austin, Texas, in March to perform at the renowned SXSW festival, with additional dates to be announced soon.
In France, his previous releases have been featured on Rolling Stone France, Les Inrocks, and Tsugi, alongside airplay on Radio FIP, France Inter’s Night Playlist, and other major stations. Meanwhile, in Germany, his One Eyed Jack Trilogy climbed to #14 on the German College Radio charts, further solidifying Englehorn’s growing international acclaim.
With each release, Gus Englehorn invites us to step into a world where intrigue, emotion, and storytelling collide, offering a thrilling sonic journey unlike any other. ‘The Hornbook’, his sophomore release, will be available everywhere on 31 January via Secret City Records.
While his journey on this terrestrial plane has taken him from his native Alaska to Utah to Québec to Portland to Hawaii to his current home (for the next five minutes at least), GusEnglehorn is ultimately a citizen of Planet Gus, an uncanny universe created through a big-bang collision between serene beauty and apocalyptic chaos, populated by folkloric heroes, creepy characters, and oversized insects alike.
A critically acclaimed indie-rock singer-songwriter, he spent much of his life as a professional snowboarder, but always dreamed of writing songs. Accompanied by his wife Estée Preda, his key collaborator with whom he produces his albums and creates music videos, his approach is visceral, subconscious and much like his snowboarding career, risk taking and unapologetic.
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