Gruk is eating a sandwich when I arrive. This is not a metaphor. It is rye bread, extra pickle, and something I don't recognize but assume is goblinoid in origin, and he is eating it with complete focus, the way people eat when they've decided the interview can wait thirty seconds and they don't particularly care what you think about that.
We're in the back of a venue off the Spillway — not The Hatch, though it feels adjacent, same density of smoke and low-end bass bleed from somewhere upstairs. Gruk is several years older than when the ALU'VADIR remaster was first rumored and about eight albums past giving press interviews out of obligation. He agreed to this one. I'm still not entirely sure why, and I'm not going to ask directly because he'd enjoy that too much.
"You want one?" he says, nodding at the sandwich.
I tell him I'm fine. He shrugs and finishes it. Then he wipes his hands on a paper napkin, looks at my recorder like it's mildly interesting, and says: "Alright. Let's go."
This June marks twenty-one years since ALU'VADIR (The Pens) dropped on Mystic Weaves Records — street copies only, technically unreleased, immediately watched by the DML. It is the most accurate document of what happened to the green cap community that exists. It named the planners. It described the ink. It had the donor lists, the vote counts, the precinct numbers, the timestamps. By the time it charted — and it did chart, eventually, in the way that truth sometimes does when the people it was written for finally get speakers — Mayor Holt was already dead and Mr. Brown was still having lunch at one.
Nothing went to jail. Gruk got rich. The Pens got worse.
"People ask me if that bothers me," he says, when I put it to him plainly. "The money part. Like I should feel bad about it."
He looks at me for a second.
"Ask me if the Spillway's better."
It isn't. The missing persons numbers in the rift-adjacent neighborhoods have been climbing quietly for three years. The green caps are still holding the line at the Pens boundary — barely — and the red caps past that line are not a warning sign anymore. They are a condition. The city has largely decided this is someone else's problem, which is exactly what Gruk documented happening in 2004 while the wood was still burning.
The remaster drops this month alongside Spillway Side, the lead single from his as-yet-untitled current album. What follows is the full walk through ALU'VADIR — track by track, twenty-one years on — in Gruk's words and mine.
[INTRO — looped city planning meeting audio, dry monotone, tape-warped] [trap beat enters slow, finding its footing] [VERSE 1] 2003 and the clipboards came first Before the torches, before the thirst Men in clean shoes with laminate IDs Standing in Alu'Vadir like they owned the trees And maybe they did — got the paperwork to prove it Got a zoning ordinance, got a plan, got a blueprint Green caps out front trying to read the fine print Trying to find the line where the rift-scar ends and the city begins Ain't no line Never was They drew it AFTER [CHORUS] Paper zoning, paper walls Paper hands holding up paper halls You can't zone a rift-scar, can't zone the bleed Can't put a boundary line on what a city needs Ink on the map don't move the dirt Ink on the map don't stop what hurts They brought the clipboards, they brought the pen Welcome to Alu'Vadir Welcome to the pens [VERSE 2] Devereaux's cousin had a garden on the corner Grew something that don't got a name in English Something that smelled like Vardune before the fire Before the frequency broke and the sky went wrong She tended it every morning, rain or rift-quake Green cap on, head down, trying to belong Then the survey crew came with their stakes and their string Drew a line right through the middle of everything She asked them what it meant Man smiled and said Temporary displacement, community betterment She didn't speak the language but she knew the word Same word different century Same thing occurred [BRIDGE] [beat drops to just bass] I got the minutes from the meeting I got the names on the motion I got the vote count and the date And the office and the floor I got the signature that rezoned three generations Into a check and a handshake and a PR situation I got it all on record Every. Fucking. Word. [beat slams back] [VERSE 3] Summer's coming You can feel it in the rift Something's shifting in the low end Something's starting to lift Green caps still out front Still trying to read the line Still believing that the paperwork Means something this time One man on the corner Tired of the wait Looks down at his cap Looks up at the gate That motherfucker dipped his cap Made the green go red Then he stabbed ole boy in the face Made him wish he were dead [beat cuts — only the warped bureaucratic loop remaining, still reading ordinances] [fades]
The opening track ends on a bureaucrat who is still talking. The meeting has not adjourned. It never adjourns.
"That last verse," I say. "The cap going red. You wrote that in 2005. Did you know what you were seeing?"
He thinks about this for what feels like a long time. "Nah," he says. "I knew what had happened. I didn't know what it was gonna be."
"I was just a guy with a good memory and a problem with authority. The receipts were there. I just picked 'em up."
— Gruk
[INTRO — Vardunian string instrument, warm. Background: children shouting, distant city at peace.] [VERSE 1] Remember the light when it hit the leaves just right? Before the sky turned grey, before the permanent night I'm talking '02, '03, the air smelling sweet Like Vardunian blossoms drifting down every street We had the gardens on the corner, the soil deep and black Grew things the DML said we could never bring back I remember the elders, the way they'd sit in the shade Telling stories of the rift, of the choices they made And we just listened. Green caps pulled low, leaning back in the grass Watching the clean-shoe world in their limos just pass We didn't want their cities, didn't want their gold We just wanted a story that we actually told. [CHORUS] Green Cap Summer, gold in the haze Lost in the rhythm of the better days Where the lines weren't drawn and the ink wasn't dry And we could look the sun in the eye Just a moment in the sun, just a breath in the breeze Living in the shadow of the living trees Green Cap Summer... Yeah, we almost had it. [BRIDGE] [beat slows to pulse] And for a second... I think we did. I think the map was wrong. I think the world was just big enough for us If we just stayed quiet. If we just stayed green. [OUTRO] Stay in the light... Keep the cap on... Just one more summer. Just one more... [Children's laughter — cut off by single distant clipboard clicking shut] [Fades to single lingering string chord dissolving into static]
This is the only track on the album Gruk didn't write. It was written by someone he describes only as "an associate." He won't say more. The voice in the song is from inside Alu'Vadir — someone who wore the green — and Gruk stayed on the sidewalk.
"I was never one of them," he says, without apology. "I'm goblinoid. That ain't the same as fey. But I was there. And somebody had to say what it felt like from inside." He pauses. "That clipboard at the end. That wasn't me either. That was the associate. First time I heard the mix I laughed. Then I didn't."
[Throat singing opens — eight bars — war cry, ancient, the sound of a forest that's gone] [VERSE 1] 2005 and the blood ain't dry yet on Flatbush Mayor Holt took three in the chest — good I said what I said — the only motherfucker reading the Accords And they put him in the ground before the ink dried on the boards Now we got Voss-lite in the chair with a flag pin and a smile Pointing at Alu'Vadir like we built the fucking pile Devereaux lost his building — forty years, three generations Got a check and a handshake and a PR situation [CHORUS] [throat singing underneath, pulse, war drum] Alu'Vadir — they called it the pens Same shit, different century, different skin They took your blood, they took their world Now everybody's bleeding for the same goddamn earl The trees are ash, the wood is bone Green caps got nothing, you got nothing, nobody's home But somebody's laughing all the way to the deed And it ain't never been the ones who bleed [BRIDGE] [beat drops — just bass] Summer of '04 they torched three blocks of Alu'Vadir Living wood burns different — smells like something that was breathing Green cap elder died in the rubble — no name in the paper DML sat on their hands — political favor I know who threw the first brick I know what precinct watched I know what office made the call I got a long fucking memory and I got time [beat SLAMS back] [FINAL CHORUS] We remember every name Every. Fucking. Name. [Throat singing alone — fades slow] [Wood creaking. Then silence. Then the wood again, once, quiet.]
I ask him about the Holt line. I have to. It's the one that got quoted in the DML watch memo. Mayor Holt took three in the chest — good.
"Still feel that way?"
He looks at me like I asked him if water was wet. "He was the only one reading the Accords," Gruk says. "You want me to be sad about the math working out the way everybody knew it was gonna work out?" He shrugs. "The remaster didn't change the line."
"I know who threw the first brick. I know what precinct watched. I got a long memory and I got time."
— Gruk, "Born in the Bleed" (2005, remastered 2026)He hasn't released that information. Twenty-one years later, I ask him why not. He is quiet for what feels like a long time. "Because some things," he says finally, "you only get to say once. And the time's gotta be right."
[INTRO — No beat. Just the Vardunian hum — hollow, cathedral-stripped.] [VERSE 1] They called us Vrag-nul Said we held the mountain I been looking for the mountain All I found was the weight And the kings are in the dirt now The kings are in the goddamn dirt So what does that make me What does that make us— [hum fills it — eight seconds of hollow cathedral] We were never the kings Let me be clear about that We were the thing the kings Wiped their boots on coming back Vardune had an order Every stone knew its place Goblins at the bottom Smiling up at everybody's face [CHORUS] Vrag-nul One who carries the weight Vrag-nul One who holds the mountain straight But the mountain's gone The mountain's ash and bone And we're still carrying We're still carrying Something We just don't know what anymore [BRIDGE] [hum swells — Gruk's voice drops to almost nothing, close mic] My grandfather carried the weight His grandfather carried the weight Every goblin going back to the first stone Carried the weight And we told ourselves it was sacred Told ourselves it meant something That we were the foundation That without us nothing stood But foundations don't get names in the paper Foundations don't get funerals Foundations just Get built on top of [long silence — hum alone] [VERSE 3] So here's the math Since I'm the one doing it Kings in the rubble Means the rubble goes all the way down Means the weight we been carrying Was never a mountain It was a grave And we been digging it Careful Both hands For a thousand years I'm not screaming You notice that I'm not screaming Because screaming means You think somebody's listening Vrag-nul That's what we are One who carries the weight of the mountain Except the mountain doesn't know your name And the mountain never will [hum fades — silence — one beat longer than comfortable] [wood creaking, distant, once] [then nothing]
In goblinoid dialect, Vrag-nul originally meant the one who holds the structure together. After Alu'Vadir, the word rotted into something else.
I ask if the word can be reclaimed. "Reclaimed by who?" he says. He lets that sit. "The mountain's gone," he says eventually. "Vardune is dust. We're still here carrying something. I just — twenty-one years ago I didn't know what to call it. I still don't. That's why the track doesn't resolve."
He taps the table once with one finger. "Foundations don't get funerals. That line. That's the whole thing."
[INTRO — Two overlapping audio loops fighting each other] [Loop 1: district council leader, measured, sympathetic press conference voice] [Loop 2: DML Magic Crimes Task Force, incident report monotone] [Both warped, slightly off sync — then the beat drops like a door kicked off its hinges] [VERSE 1] I'm on the corner I got eyes I got a nose And living wood burns different than a building Everybody here knows Smells like something that was breathing Smells like something that had a name And the radio's playing Mr. Brown Saying it's a contained numenic flame Contained I'm standing in the HEAT of it Contained Tell that to the elder in the rubble of it Contained That's what they call it when the cameras need a word That don't sound like what it is That don't sound like what occurred [CHORUS] [brass stabs — emergency broadcast, not funeral] The trees ain't on fire Motherfucking liar My rage calibrated Spitting as I watch the world expire Mr. Brown at the podium Lips the color of his name Color of the money Color of the shame I got receipts I got the corner and the clock I got the smoke in my lungs From the block that you forgot [BRIDGE] I got the precinct number I got the dispatch log I got the timestamp on the call That never came I got Mr. Brown's donor list Third quarter Proseg PAC Fourteen thousand dollars I got all of it Every. Fucking. Receipt. [VERSE 3] In my world This is Alu'Vadir This is three blocks This is one elder No name in the paper This is the receipts They forgot I was keeping [beat cuts — both loops continue alone, neither winning] [Mr. Brown still talking — fades] [then the hum — just once, hollow, brief] [then nothing]
This is the track that got The Hatch monitored. Gruk doesn't say this with pride. He says it the way you say the weather.
"Living wood burns different," he says, when I ask him about being there. "It smells like something that was breathing. Like something that had a name." A long pause. "I threw up actually. After. Not during, I held it together during, but after."
"Don't print that," he says.
I'm printing it.
[INTRO — Beat drops immediately. Up-tempo, bouncy. Crowd noise like this is already live.] [VERSE 1] Wake up in the morning First thing on my mind Two things in this city That are genuinely fine Food and the other thing Both hit different when you're green Tallest goblin in the Spillway Leanest mean machine Hit the bodega Nine AM Still got last night on me Man behind the counter Doesn't ask Just makes it That's community Rye bread Extra pickle Don't be stingy with the meat Tell me what's the point of living If you don't enjoy the eat [CHORUS] Green pickle sandwich That's what I said Green pickle sandwich Morning to bed Don't need your zoning Don't need your deed Just need the two things That a goblin needs Green pickle sandwich Say it with me Green pickle sandwich That's the recipe For staying alive In a city that's trying Green pickle sandwich I ain't lying [VERSE 2] Big Choong told me Pull up to the show I said I'll be there Soon as I finish this though He said whatchu eating I said you already know He said say less And that's why we go Half orc understands The fundamentals of life You eat what you want You love who you like Don't let the DML File your appetite Subsection C "Contained goblinoid delight" [BRIDGE] [beat drops — Gruk gets philosophical for exactly eight bars] You know what the DML Never could contain The fact that being alive Still feels like something Even in the rain Even in the rubble Even when the wood burns Some things stay good That's what Gruk has learned [beat SLAMS back — bigger than before] [OUTRO — ad libs over fading beat] Green pickle... Rye bread... Extra pickle... Big Choong you already know... Spillway stand up... [fades out laughing]
I had listened to this track a dozen times before the interview. I had also eaten a sandwich on the way here. These two facts feel connected now.
"Being alive still feels like something," I say. "That's the line."
"Even in the rubble," he says. "Even when the wood burns." He looks out toward the back of the venue. Something shifts in his face, just for a second. "Some things stay good. That's true. I believe that. You gotta believe that."
Then he looks back at me. "The Pens are worse," he says. "Both things are true."
[INTRO — Green Cap Summer string sample returns — skipping, scratched, bending downward. Children's laughter slowed until it sounds like something else entirely.] [VERSE 1] It didn't happen all at once It wasn't a snap, it was a slow-burn rot A hairline fracture in the heart of the wood A quiet breaking of the only thing that was good I saw them first in the alleys, the ones who didn't speak The giants who used to bend the branches, now suddenly weak Their eyes weren't eyes anymore — just mirrors of the fire Watching the clean-shoe world build the funeral pyre They tried to shape the ruins, tried to make the concrete bloom But you can't grow a garden in a designated tomb. [CHORUS] [beat enters — heavy metallic thuds, something huge hitting a wall] Shatter the glass, snap the spine Crossing the border, blurring the line The green went pale, the pale went red The songs of the forest are officially dead Welcome to the breaking, welcome to the fall The silence is coming to swallow us all It's the Shattering... Can you hear the wood snap? [BRIDGE] [beat cuts — just Vardunian hum and something heavy dragging across concrete] They don't remember the gardens. They don't remember the lullabies. They just remember the scent of the ink on the maps. And the smell of the man who held the pen. Now they don't want the land back. They just want the blood to match the color of their caps. [Single loud crystalline SHATTERING sound. Music stops.] [Silence.] [Heavy wet breath — close mic.] [A voice — not Gruk's — distorted, child's register, whispers:] "Scent..." [Aggressive burst of static. Cuts to absolute silence.]
I ask him about the Pens directly. Not for color. Because the missing persons numbers are real and the green cap boundary is real and someone should ask.
He's quiet for a long time. "You want to know what's in there," he says finally. It isn't a question. "Yeah," he says. "I know."
He doesn't say anything else about that. I don't push. Some things, once you name them, can't be unnamed. He said that himself, twenty-one years ago, on Track 4, and he meant it then.
Before I leave, I ask Gruk what he wants people to take from the remaster. Twenty-one years on.
"I want them to hear it and know that somebody was paying attention," he says. "That's all. Somebody was there and they had their eyes open and they wrote it down and they didn't look away." He pauses. "The archive is still open. That's what the remaster says. I didn't close it. I'm not gonna close it."
He picks up his phone. Interview's over. "You want the rest of the sandwich?" he says. "I got another one in the back."
I did take it. It was excellent. For the record.