By the end of the 1960s, the American and British counterculture and hippie movement had moved rock towards psychedelia, heavy metal, progressive rock and other styles, incorporating, for the first time in popular music, socially and politically incisive lyrics. The 1968 German student movement, French protests and Italian student movement had created a class of young, intellectual continental listeners, while nuclear weapons, pollution, and war inspired protests and activism. Avant-garde music had taken a turn towards the electronic in the mid-1950s. The avant-garde minimalist music current which emerged in the beginning of the 60s with the works of Americans La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich using drones and loops (often with synthesizers and tapes) in a kind of psychedelic and space-oriented music. These factors all laid the scene for the explosion in what came to be termed BEAST. In short double drumming, double synth pummeling machine!!!!!!!
KOGUMAZA / LISTEN
Hypnotic, fuzzed-out song cycles marrying garage-rock sounds to an ambient aesthetic, ending up sounding somewhere between Moondog and Lungfish. They've played shows with Earth, Zomes and Growing among others.Between them they've played in bands as varied as Wolves Of Greece, Savoy Grand, Lords, Bob Tilton, Felix, Glenn Branca, Damo Suzuki, Not In This Town and more but KGMZ manages to sound like none of them.
ENABLERS / LISTEN
coming soon! NATHAN BELL / LISTEN
coming soon! WHITE FOAL / LISTEN
coming soon! BLACK OCTAGON / LISTEN
coming soon! SPITTING COBRA / LISTEN
coming soon! PETE SIMONELLI / LISTEN
In addition to being the vocalist and co-founder of the San Francisco-based band, Enablers, Simonelli is a published poet, writer, and playwright. A native Californian, Simonelli spent eighteen formative years in San Francisco, documenting, observing, drinking, reading, loving, betraying, working, and writing--- attributes and setbacks that, over the years, have led to many a Second Chance, for which he is very grateful. And call it birthright, boon, or bane, but as one who too often veered in westerly directions (much to the amusement of his friends and bandmates), Simonelli moved east in 2008 and now makes his home in Brooklyn, New York. MUGSTAR / LISTEN
Mugstar are the sound of 10,000 suns exploding, pulsing and repetative beauty, sounding like a sonic mantra. They set sail for the sun in 2002 and hav ecompleted numerous voyages with the likes of Mogwai, Melt Banana, Oneida, Acid Mothers temple and Part Chimp. The band recorded one of the last sessions for the late great john Peel and have recently put out a split 7" with Mudhoney nd have a new album out on Important records . . REDPANDA / LISTEN
Redpanda were concieved in a house called Braemer in the depths of Lancashire. An instrumental rock band that recorded a self titled 12", a split 7" with the great band Enablers and their final departing offering a cover of the folk song 'Tamlin' on a split 10" with Mugstar, seeing a previously brooding vocal presence come to life perfomed live for the very last time around the bass of a tree . . . . ' A Bon Voyage to the Colonel'. McWATT / LISTEN
We are a duo. We play double bass, flute and several accordions. We are D.I.Y., and we love playing gigs. Invite us, we are nice and all we ask is what you can give us off the door. We smell good and are polite, even when drunk.vWhenever the size of the room and the raucousness of the audience allows, we prefer to play completely acoustically, i.e. not even through the p.a. It used to be in our manifesto, but sometimes we've been defeated by a too large room or too much audience noise. Acoustic is best though - more musical! We like Debussy, Satie, Sea Shanties, British folk music, Charlie Haden, Arvo Part, things of that ilk. People say our songs are really sad, but we do not think so. Maybe we are really depressed. One of us, Seth, lives in Leeds UK, and the other, Sarah, lives in Liverpool, UK. Sarah also plays in the band Like A Kind of Matador, but we do not sound like them. Seth plays in a band called 7 Hertz, but we do not sound like them either. -a+M / LISTEN
As of Feb 09, they shifted into guitar/drums/guitar mode with the inclusions of both volume & electricity. This is called L A M P. Previously they were -a+M, 2 guitars, 12 strings, 4 hands, 2 heads engaged in beautiful instumental guitar battles. MONOBROW / LISTEN
Monobrow began as a duo of pedal noise makers quickly evolving to include five drum kits, double bass, saxophone, keyboards, synths, violin, oboe, jug singing and once, a chair being sawed to pieces and the mess then hoovered up. DBH / LISTEN
coming soon! ICE KING OF CALIFORNIA / LISTEN
coming soon! EUCHRID EUCROW / LISTEN
Euchrid Eucrow are Euchrid, Abi Fry, and Caroline Weeks. They play accordion, guitar, and viola irrespectively, stripped down raw beautiful dark passages . . . DEEP SEA DUMPING / LISTEN
coming soon!