From raw spontaneity to political resistance, Putan Club redefines the role of music as a symbol of the struggle for liberation.
We would be proud if Putan Club could be a small part of the soundtrack for a riot galloping towards a global revolution.
Putan Club
On 3rd March 2025, Putan Club will release their new album “Filles d’Octobre“, a live record captured during their performance at Amplifest. Before that, on 1st February, the album will be available for free download, exclusively for Putan Club Debauchery subscribers.
Published by Toten Schwan Records, “Filles d’Octobre” will have a limited edition of 3000 copies on double vinyl, with no future reprints.
More than just an album, “Filles d’Octobre“ is a raw and faithful portrait of what Putan Club are and what they stand for. This isn’t just music, it’s a manifesto.
Keeping on the fringes of the music industry, Gianna Greco and François Cambuzat take Putan Club to more than 100 concerts a year, in contexts as diverse as the streets of Laâyoune, basements throughout of Central Europe, or in Tajikistan. Without labels or concessions, they explore a fusion of avant-rock, industrial, techno, noise, ethno, metal, and whatever else they fancy. Labeling Putan Club will always be a mistake riddled with inaccuracies.
On 18 March 2025, they present the new album live at the Colchester Arts Centre in the UK, followed by a promotional tour with 44 dates already booked. In Portugal, they perform on 4th October as part of the “Uma Noite Irreversível”.
In this interview, Putan Club talk about their new release, about political and social issues and concepts, their relationship with the audience, their creative process, and how they see each concert as an act of challenge and affirmation. A conversation that was more than an exchange of questions and answers, it was a privilege and, at the same time, a reflection of the essence of Irreversível.
Fuck neutrality. This is resistance!
A real independent statement would be to never release anything, as we were doing at the beginning.
Putan Club
Irreversível / Francisco Barros – Hello Gianna and François, thank you so much for taking the time for this interview, and congratulations on your upcoming album release. I loved it.
Putan Club have always rejected the canons of mainstream music, taking a radically independent stance. Does this new live-recorded album further solidify that approach? What emotions or reactions do you hope it evokes in the listener?
Putan Club – We strongly believe that art -and so music- is helping fighting against the taedium vitae, sometimes it could be also resisting against despair caused by capitalism and its politician watchdogs. A reaction we can hope would be that everyone believes that everything remains possible, that we can still – and despite everything – invent another life. Emotions, reactions…. we would be proud if Putan Club could be a small part of the soundtrack for a riot galloping towards a global revolution. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” (Emma Goldman, Jack Frager).
Then more than the the canons of mainstream music, it’s more the music industry itself that we’re trying to avoid. But of course for every album we have to flirt with the devil : when an artist releases an album, we think he is responsible for it -and not just satisfying his miserable ego- and these “Filles d’Octobre” (October daughters) can’t be an exception. Responsible means promotion, marketing and sales, total -and most quickly- sold-out, because independent labels are often heroes just driven by an almost suicidal passion. We were also tired to reprint & reprint again our first album “Filles de Mai”, and recording an swinging ferocity during beloved Amplifest was a good opportunity to take stock of a whole period of concerts and to give an idea of what the Putan Club develops now. With Toten Schwan Records we opted then for a limited edition of 3000 copies, without ever reprinting it. Somehow we have to use some (the basic) strategies of the music industry – in our case it’s more of a craft close to diy, leaving to everyone as much freedom as possible. A real independent statement would be to never release anything, as we were doing at the beginning.
Irreversível – You often perform, one might even say you prefer it always that way, directly in the middle of the audience, promoting an intense and immediate connection. How does this choice, which from my perspective seems to define the spirit of Putan Club, shape the experience of your music? And how did it influence the creation of this album?
Putan Club – You’re right, henceforth we deeply need to touch, to push, to scream at, to jump with the audience, it’s a kind of primary savagery where remains humanity and we love to feel it, it became therapeutical and it’s definitively addicting. At first playing in the audience (both separated and far from each other) came to us because we were tired of this elitist side of music and wanted a non-comfort zone where audience and artists were at the same level. Moreover, all our research in ethnomusicology (Trans-Aeolian Transmission) had made us discover that no stage ever existed in the rituals practiced in Asia or Africa, the musicians having a real social role, placed as in or as close as possible to the communities. Over time it has surely become an important way of performing and a point of recognition of Putan Club, so much so that now even the brave festivals ask us to plant our “no-stage” plan. It happens now that during these sets we don’t see each other for the entire duration of the concert, people being in the middle of us two. In smaller venues the magic is even stronger, making each concert a different moment for us every night, and each country, each city, each region has a weird and different way of experiencing this moment, -some immediately inflamed (Serbia) or more timid (Tajikistan)- and this is also why we love and need- to travel. This way of « geographically » organising things does not influence our way of composing, there is no premeditation, eventhouth, on the other hand, it is true that the rituals studied have also musically taught us that we needed to produce a certain catharsis, a liberation, withe a certain kind of liberating & dancing violence. This album “Filles d’Octobre” (October’s daughters – another revolution, and also the month of Amplifest) is a captured moment of this process.
Irreversível – Putan Club exists on the edges, for the fringes, refusing to belong to any musical “church”. Does this new album push those boundaries even further?
Putan Club – I don’t think we are marginal – and no one really is. It’s just the political industry or music industry that would have us believe it, in order to make us think as little and as banally as possible, but above all to sell us their products better. Limits : all music interests us, from Keiji Haino to Britney Spears, we need -psychologically and at every different moment of the day- each of them. Our October daughters therefore come from industrial, techno, noise, ethno, metal, Messiaen or whatsoever, above all, the feeling is most certainly Bakuninian. So yes, the Putan Club is on the fringe humanly and therefore politically – just like a huge minority of many others.
Putan Club © Sévérine Kpoti
Dancing, touching, pushing, shouting and screaming in a primal pogo or ancestral mosh-pit.
Putan Club
Irreversível – Your music is raw, dense, yet also sophisticated and unpredictable. How do you strike a balance between simplicity and complexity, these contrasting layers, in your compositions?
Putan Club – This is really a long process. As we are basically coming from avant-rock, from certain polyrhythms, we could not be bored to compose and then play in 4/4, 6/8, etc….. To make it simple, the idea is to mix composed measures, odd times, while keeping a binary pulse. It is still a polyrhythm, but guided by the feet. Nobody realizes it, except the old colonels and the musicians who hold the walls and count on their fingers while the others jump like crickets & wild trouts, with and in the middle of us. And all the rest – again – is very close to the rituals observed in Central Asia or Africa. Dancing, touching, pushing each other, shouting & screaming in primary pogo or ancestral mosh-pit.
Irreversível – In an increasingly categorized and mimetic industry, Putan Club feels like a “punch in the gut” to conformity. Do you find the public more open to irreverent experiences like yours, or is resistance still a challenge?
Putan Club – We believe the audience is totally open to irreverent experiences, especially if they don’t know it. We think that the public doesn’t need to care about what we technically do – and they are right, it’s the fire that matters (and this links to the idea of duende). That said, it is rather our strategy and way of doing things -without an agency, almost without a label neither PRs- which is a real challenge that makes us succeed in paying our rents etc. from years now. For its part, the industry works with mimetic artists because it is obviously easier to sell what is imposed as a unique taste through expensive promotions. We have created another ecosystem for ourselves, far removed from commercial lies, because where we are antagonistic is more in the way of doing things, this atypical “management”. And we are not the only ones, far from it. Resistance will always be a challenge.
Irreversível – What inspires or drives Putan Club?
Putan Club – What inspires us is the way that certain communities (ethno tribal, alevi, punk or anarchist) have of building together, of organizing ways of life based on ideas of grassroots-level self-organizing, mutual aid, solidarity, sustainable development, animal-friendly lifestyles, anti-authoritarianism, autonomy, feminism & revolution and other initiatives that aim to create a more just and free society, by opposing any form of social discrimination and views that generate hatred or division, but supporting people wich are really working against racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, party politics, capitalism and organized religion. Then eventually paying our rents & bills only with music, rigorously inventing a way of life that will take us, intellectually and also geographically, as far as possible and finally discover/meet/talk & learn from other women & men acting with dignity/respect & evolution. This remains rare – but does exist, often far away, which is also why we travel. A dawn in Konibodom, a spring in Mazury or a frenzy audience in Београд. Finally (and this is absolutely not the least important) inspirated by books and reading (it’s almost an obsession), meeting “A arte da alegria” (Gogliarda Sapienza) on a bookstore counter in Catania. Resistance, travels, literature. Towards a certain delivrance.
We may not see it, but every step, every reading, every listening, every look, every different reflection will take us there, towards a globlal revolution, irreversibly.
Hopefully
Putan Club
Irreversível – Personally, I hate labelling artists or bands, it’s almost always limiting, however sometimes it’s necessary (if only because of promotion platforms). If you had to describe the sound you create, how would you define it?
Putan Club – TransgenderFeministElectronicIndustrialAvantRockTechnoEthnoWorldSauvagerie – and it’s so long it won’t fit on a store label. You’re right, labelling is hateful, frequently so reductive and even churchy.
Irreversível – On 04.10.2025 you will be performing, to our pride and anticipation, at “Uma Noite Irreversível”. What does it mean for you to perform in Portugal, and particularly at this celebration party of the “Independent platform for artistic and cultural dissemination” which is this Magazine?
Putan Club – Years ago, Portugal was one of the first countries that bewitched us. We played there a lot, from Minho to the Algarve. Then some festivals left an irremediable mark on us, like Milhoes de Festa, Amplifest or the FMM, not so much for their programming but for the humanity of the team. We have cultivated a very strong bond with the Portuguese people – and it is absolutely not opportunism when we say this, we believe that the geographical distance has made the Lusitanians seriously curious and open to the unknown, and this is of course a huge quality. That is of course also the essence of Irreversível, Chomsky could have written it “if there is information, critique and reflection, nothing will be like before “. For those who have never entered the Putan Club, October 4th in Braga is likely to be irreversible. Performing at “Uma Noite Irreversível” makes us part of the community – and we’re truly grateful for that.
Irreversível – What is irreversible?
Putan Club – We believe that the end of this world is irreversible, the rise of the extreme right and the victory of capitalism and ignorance also seem irreversibles, but as irreversible are the resistances that will bring then people together again in the streets to organize the fall and bring down this whole iniquitous system based on ignorance that is roting our lives. We may not see it but every step, every reading, every listening, every look, every different reflection will take us there, towards a globlal revolution, irreversibly. Hopefully. And again, if our way of doing & our music can be a small part of the soundtrack, we would be a little proud of it. Despair and ignorance should not win.
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Cover image:
Photo © Carlo Mazzotta
Artwork © Pedro Protest
