o13 creates an evolving texture of music, a piercing electronic post-punk, a future that never manifested itself, spectral, uncompromising portals of electronic dread.
For the better part of the '80s, Mark C was leading legendary New York noise band Live Skull as they were deconstructing the rock song with thick gritty bass and streety guitar. Among their eight releases on Caroline and Homestead, Live Skull's "Bringing Home the Bait" has been deservingly referred to as the "Best Noise Rock Post Punk New Wave No Wave Experimental Indie Emo Goth Album Ever."
Meanwhile, Stuart Argabright was sketching his sonic vision of gothic futurism in Ike Yard, the first NY group on Factory Records America, also one of the first true purveyors of experimental, time-shifting electronic music. It is a torch that they still carry today with a searing pyre. Stuart continued his visionary pursuit as a founding member of Death Comet Crew, Dominatrix, and Black Rain, as well as the galaxy-striding Bi-Conicals of Rammellzee.
After releasing four acclaimed albums with The Holy Ghost, the last on Fargo Records, bassist Kent Heine met up with Stuart and Mark to form o13.
In 2010, o13 produced Vandal Tribes, an audio movie EP with guests Judy Nylon & Jamie Teasdale, aka Vex'd. o13 also began preproduction of a video for a series of events based on author JG Ballard's works. Along with a live score, the band eventually offered o13 Presents: The Atrocity Exhibition to audiences. The video/audio experience was last presented at the Serralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal, and continues to be part of the band's live arsenal. In addition, o13's music was recently featured in BAM150, a documentary celebrating the historic Brooklyn Academy of Music. Following a couple of European tours, o13 has now finished its first album Time Wave Zero to be released on desire. Time Wave Zero glides through time and space like a lucid dreaming dragonfly, settling on songs, scenes, and improvisations from a new post-modern American songbook.
"Though some of the textures that made up Ike Yard and Live Skull are here, the sound is effortlessly contemporary. Minimal, hypnotic bass (courtesy the fantastic Kent Heine) and drum grooves (sometimes live, some times sampled, sometimes a machine) set a rain slicked tone for which the Ballardian sci-fi synths and occasional guitars skitter across like neon reflections of some dystopian city scape. The vocals are ghostly chants wafting through like Doppler from a black sedan with conspiracies plastered on its doors. " Signal Graffiti
"[o13] are an entirely unique hybrid, steeped in NYC lore, a strange alchemical melding of electronic futurism, poignant frazzled and blitzed avant-rock and thick fluid basslines. A glacial, dubby, haunted and dangerous futuristic post-punk." Resonance FM
"layering guitar, bass, and occasional live percussion over laptop loops and electronic clamor, the New York trio painted soundscapes that were part sci-fi, part film noir... fold[ing] flailing guitar and floor-shaking pulses into surprisingly poised songs." Washington Post
Time Wave Zero will be out vinyl, CD and digital.
January, 29, 2013, Salzburg, Austria – In May 2010, Feeding Fingers frontman, Justin Curfman left the United States in favor of a life in Germany, a mere two months after completing a successful tour of Europe with his group, supporting such acts as, Nitzer Ebb, former BAUHAUS, Love & Rockets and Tones on Tail bassist, David J and IAMX (Chris Corner – formerly of Sneaker Pimps). From that spring of 2010 in Cologne, Germany, Curfman began production on what was to become Feeding Fingers’ fourth, full-length album release, “The Occupant”. Production on the album then moved east with Curfman into Ingolstadt (birthplace of The Illuminati and Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster) in 2011 – then, finally settling in Salzburg, Austria (that picturesque city and home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) from early 2012 through the winter of 2013, where the album was completed inside the halls of the University of Salzburg Mozarteum and the Salzburg Musikum with support from listeners through a successful Kickstarter campaign and from the group’s long-time management and production partners, David I. Nunez (Tephramedia) and legendary radio personality, James “Coyote J.” Battan.
“My intention with The Occupant is to expand the musical vocabulary of the group as much as I am able to at this point in my development as an artist and to attempt to stray away from at least some of the conventional trappings that our listeners have come to expect from a Feeding Fingers release, but hopefully doing so in a more natural and non-deliberate manner. No pushing. No shoving. We have all seen time and time again throughout history what happens when an artist starts to bully his or her own work into being something that it simply should not be - failure is more often than not the result. I have tried my best here not to antagonize my own creativity too much with this recording. This is partially why, I believe, that it has taken three years for this album to show itself to me.”
Throughout the production of “The Occupant”, Curfman enlisted assistance not only from his band, but from the Salzburg Boys Choir, a Serbian female violinist, a Cuban female cellist and an American electronic musician – all of which appearing on the album. Additionally, in an effort to “expand the musical vocabulary of the group”, Curfman strayed away from Feeding Fingers’ more familiar guitar, drum and bass-driven pieces (though not entirely) in favor of composing music on a theremin, kalimbas, glockenspiels, a ukulele, an array of pianos and a hand-cranked, punch-card music box. Curfman has also expanded not only the group’s vocabulary, but the group’s language itself with the inclusion of the opening track on the album, “Eine Einladung in Ihr Gesicht mit Liebe geschnitzt” – a song written by Curfman, entirely in German and performed by a soloist member of the Salzburg Boys Choir.
Despite this description of Feeding Fingers’ seemingly much-too divergent latest release, this fourth album will, no doubt, rest well within the group’s catalog. Found easily within each of the album’s eleven tracks are all of the characteristic elements that make a Feeding Fingers release a Feeding Fingers release. Those familiar with the group’s ability to, “resonate with a certain tragic and ethereal beauty” (Don’t Panic, Singapore) and to craft, “specific… authentic… personal… heart-heavy” (LabelLos, Germany) music will not be disappointed. For the uninitiated, be prepared to experience a, “beautiful album that grabs you by the throat from the first note until the last…” (Dark Entries Magazine, Belgium).
An international “Occupant” tour beginning in the spring of 2013 is being organized now. Concert dates and locations will be announced shortly
Contact: tephramedia@gmail.com
Yesterday Akron/Family premiered the first song from their forthcoming record, Sub Verses, out on Dead Oceans on April 30th (29th in the UK).
"No-Room" showcases the heavier, more direct sound of Sub Verses. Influenced, in part, by monumental land art installations and harnessed by producer Randall Dunn (Sunn 0))), Earth, Black Mountain, Wolves In The Throne Room etc…). In a sense it sees the band returning to their roots, revisiting the heavy physical impact, emotional confrontation, intensity, and musicality of their collaborations w/ Michael Gira of Swans. In a personal statement Gira had this to say about Sub Verses:
We find [Akron/Family] rocking (still rocking), but now in a skittering kaleidoscope. The shards of music styles and influences flung through the speakers from all directions, congealing for a second, then just as quickly dissolving into something new and unexpected. They're amphetamine-crazed jugglers of sound and texture, but there's always those vocals, rooting the thing in a deep and satisfying place.
It seems to me lots of groups these days view the whole history of music as fair game for their palette, which might be understandable, since it's all there at easy access now, but most of it seems like playing dress up to me, and certainly it exists in inverted commas.
There are no inverted commas in the world of AK. They're inside the music, grinding it, fighting it, chewing it, digesting it, then spewing it up to the sky in a multicolored spray of endless sound and love."
The full text from Gira is available, alongside statements from Seth Olinsky & Miles Seaton from Akron/Family here at Dead Oceans.
The album’s art was created by Sunn 0))) guitarist Stephen O’Malley.
Low Vertical, a Bruges/Ghent region 3 piece released their debutalbum “I saw a landscape once” early 2010 and got very good reactions at Belgian press and radio, calling them one of the new bands to keep an eye on…
So here is their second album “We are Giants”, recorded again by Wouter Vlaeminck (tomàn member and producer of Raketkanon, Renee, Kapitan Korsakov) at the GAM studios.
The Radiohead influenced indie guitar style and sound with already some original keyboard and electronica influences has progressed to a more electronic sound with the guitar filling in or creating extra vibe and climax (“Epic Slaughter”).
The band started working live as well with a drummer (Lode Vlaeminck from tomàn fame) who became a full member whilst writing and recording the new album, so some energetic livedrums can be heard fighting a battle with the crispy electronic rhythms (“Sensei”).
“We are Giants” is one long trip which has to be listened to in one go whilst dreaming away when watching the beautiful artwork by bandmember Seppe Vandenberghe.
Here it is...the new Daybehavior videoclip. Gorgeous synthpop!
