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Stress Jingle/Station ID #49: Magik Markers

The Magik Markers are a noise rock band from Hartford, Connecticut. The members Elisa Ambrogio (guitar, vocal), Pete Nolan (drums) and Leah Quimby (guitar) started the band in their basement in 2001. Their debut album, I Trust My Guitar, Etc... was released in 2005 on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label.

Besides their official albums, Peter Nolan (through his Arbitrary Signs imprint) has consistently produced limited release singles, cdr and tape snapshot documents of the Magik Markers studio/4-track recordings and live performances, all with original handmade artwork, intended for a small audience. With the increasing ubiquity of file sharing, the entire catalogue of long out of print cdrs became readily available.

After Leah Quimby left the band in 2006, the Markers released Boss (2007) as a duo, the most structured recording the Markers had released to date. Since then, they have toured the US and Europe several times.

At the same time, both of the band members continued side projects with other bands and/or solo. Peter Nolan has he solo project , called Spectre Folk and played drums in Jandek's band. Elisa Ambrogio joined Six Organs of Admittance on a US and two European tours, plays with Ben Chasny on 200 Years and has her solo project.

The period following the release of 2009’s Balf Quarry seemed to point towards an ambiguous hibernation.

Surrender to Fantasy, a sprawling distillation of folk noise and unhinged verse over the course of nine disparate songs, was released in 2013 on Drag City and promoted via successful european and north american tours, marked the return of Magik Markers to records with a renewed trio formation: vocalist and guitar player Elisa Ambrogio and drummer Pete Nolan are now joined by bass player John Shaw.

“If you are missing the adrenaline-to-the-heart shock of live Harry Pussy, Minor Threat and primo Black Flag (Elisa is way more Keith Morris than Lydia Lunch), or worship the meltdown guitar rumbling and off-balance wooziness of the Dead C circa "Harsh 70's Reality" this may very well be your new fave action trio.” _ Brian Turner

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #48: Roots Manuva

Born in 1972, Rodney Smith aka Roots Manuva is a rapper from Stockwell, South London, England.

Deeply influenced by hip hop (in particular, the incomparable Rakim), sound-system culture and the measured dub poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson, Rodney  established himself as Roots Manuva in the late 90′s. His work was firmly rooted in dub and ragga but also incorporated much of the trip-hop style often associated with Ninja Tune, the UK imprint that often distributed his Big Dada releases. 

Like more and more modern MC’s, he’s often his own producer, runs his own label, and has his own alter ego (Lord Gosh). An imaginative and idiosyncratic rhymer, Roots Manuva is considered a spiritual godfather for UK hip-hop.

Beginning in late 1999, he releases Brand New Second Hand where both his vocals and his production rely on ragga and sparse, dub bass heavy tracks, filled with references to british politics, to the rat race, to third world debt limiting people's freedom.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been 15 years since this album was made. It’s easier to believe that nothing as good as it has ever come out of the UK hip-hop scene. Grime took over and that’s no bad thing, but Brand New Second Hand needs to be heard again. It’s an album that draws you into its world. There’s brooding, almost mythical feeling that runs through Roots Manuva’s meditations on poverty, urban life, racism, and crime.” _ Oscar Rickett

Shortly after putting out his debut album, Rodney returned to the studio to begin working on Run Come Save Me. This album became a british hit and increased his world-wide recognition. The break-out single “Witness (1 Hope)” is often described as the best british hip hop song ever recorded.

Since then, besides his multiple records, he can be heard on many songs performed with other artists such as Chali 2na (and Ozomatli), Jamie Cullum, DJ Shadow, Mr Scruff, U.N.K.L.E., Fun Lovin' Criminals, Nightmares on Wax, The Cinematic Orchestra, Beth Orton, The Herbaliser, Leftfield, Saian Supa Crew and Coldcut. He also made an appearance on the Gorillaz album, Demon Days, on the track "All Alone".

In 2015 Roots Manuva is back with a new album called Bleeds. Drawing upon production assistance from young british producer Fred, together with musical heavyweights Four Tet, Adrian Sherwood and With You (new alias for Major Lazer founder, Switch), the title of the record is, according to Rodney, an “egocentric jest of daring to do things in the tradition of Jesus: I’m ready to bleed for the artform”.

Rodney Smith describes himself as “a British Black musical Mark Rothko”.

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #47: Adrian Sherwood

Adrian Maxwell Sherwood was born in 1958 in London. His fascination with jamaican music began at the age of eleven, when he was living in the small town of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.

In the mid 1970's, at the ludicrously early age of seventeen, he co-founded a small distribution company called Carib Gems, selling the records shop to shop from the trunk of his car. They issued fresh jamaican product by the likes of the Twinkle Brothers, Junior Byles, Horace Andy, Delroy Wilson, Prince Far I, Michael Rose and Black Uhuru.

Around 1976 Sherwood began a strong musical relation with jamaican reggae dj Prince Far I, producing, mixing and releasing some of the most legendary albums in dub history: Psalms Of Dub and the four volumes of Far I’s Cry Tough Dub Encounter series. He also helped Far I to negotiate licensing deals with the Virgin and Trojan labels.

Throughout his carrer, Sherwood founded different record labels, but the most known is undoubtedly On-U Sound.

Officially launched in January 1981, On-U Sound's original focus was on live sound system performances, but the emphasis soon switched to making records of different hybrid acts based in rock, but largely inspired by reggae.  Sherwood began mixing and matching lineups, resulting in new acts including New Age Steppers (featuring members of The Slits, the Pop Group, and Aswad), African Head Charge (centred on Jamaican percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah), Mark Stewart & Maffia, Doctor Pablo & the Dub Syndicate , the Mothmen (with Dave Rowbotham of the Durutti Column and Bob Harding, who would later form famed reissue label Blood and Fire) and London Underground (led by Pete Holdsworth, who would later launch reissue label Pressure Sounds with Sherwood)

Sherwood's distinctive production style soon began attracting interest from acts outside of the dub community, and in 1980 he helmed The Slits' Man Next Door, followed a year later by the Fall's Slates EP. On-U Sound releases from Public Image Ltd. and the Pop Group also earned the label considerable attention, but reggae remained its focus

By the mid 80's, Sherwood was among the most visible producers and remixers of his time, working on tracks for artists as varied as Depeche Mode, Einsturzende Neubaten, Simply Red, the Woodentops, Coldcut, Primal Scream, Pop Will Eat Itself, Sinéad O'Connor and Ministry. He also became increasingly involved in industrial music as the decade wore on, producing tracks for Cabaret Voltaire, Skinny Puppy, KMFDM, and Nine Inch Nails. So revolutionary is his knob twiddling that artists have been beating a more or less constant path to his North London home where, in a home grown recording studio, Sherwood continues to play his mixing desk, bulldozing boundaries between funk, reggae, dub and good old industrial noise with ease.

In 1986 he began working Jamaican dub producer and singer Lee Perry. They produced the classic album Time Boom X De Devil Dead and Sherwood’s support helped relaunch Perry’s career. In 1994, Sherwood mounted Pressure Sounds, a new label dedicated to reissuing seminal reggae and dub releases from the likes of Lee "Scratch" Perry, King Tubby, Augustus Pablo, Jackie Mittoo, and Horace Andy.

Besides his work as a producer, Sherwood began releasing his own records in 2003, when he put out Never Trust A Hippie, which featured collaborations with Sly & Robbie, Steven “Lenky” Marsden, Carlton “Bubblers” Ogilvie and Jazzwad. In the summer of 2012, Sherwood resumed his own recording career, with the release of a solo album, Survival & Resistance.

He is also the fourth member of industrial hip-hop outfit Tackhead, credited as "mixologist."

"One of the most influential and innovative figures on the U.K. reggae scene, producer Adrian Sherwood and his famed On-U Sound label pioneered a distinctive fusion of dub, rock, and dance that made waves not only in roots circles but also in the pop mainstream."   Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #46: dUAS sEMI cOLCHEIAS iNVERTIDAS It's hard to understand how a band that was born in an incidental and improvised way, baptized first with a symbol and later with a strange and unpronounceable name, that possesses such an odd sound, has managed to survive until now. 

Born in 2007, dUASsEMIcOLCHEIASiNVERTIDAS (dSCi) have released two EPs (“I” in 2008 and “II” in 2009), a tape (“SADITREVNiSAIEHCLOcIMEsSAUd” in 2010), a LP (“4″ in 2012), a split-tape (“dSCi/Cangarra” in 2013) and a live recording of their side project of electro-acoustic improvisation (“dOISsEMIcIRCUITOSiNVERTIDOS live at Auditório Carlos Paredes“ in 2013).
 Besides that they participated in many compilations, made six european tours and played around 300 concerts in the most diverse situations and venues.



In the midst of all this they still found time to organize dozens of events with portuguese and international acts through their Associação Terapêutica do Ruído (ATR) - dSCi's siamese twin which is dedicated to promoting DIY concerts and to publishing and distributing records - and also to form other side projects such as: Gan Gan Gan (with the portuguese poet Tiago Gomes), PPCM (with the north-american pianist Thollem Mcdonas), the dj collective Kafunfo noSoundsystem, Cena 28, Aye-Aye, Jabutis, Gee Bees, Catapulta or the Orquestra do Ruído, an orchestra of improvised music!

“[...] dUASsEMIcOLCHEIASiNVERTIDAS is one of Portugal’s most outstanding and unusual groups. Stretching from ecstatic overlapping saxophone to electrifying synth madness, from the jazzy balance of bass and drums to fierce guitar noise, these convulsing sounds are meant to take form right when your state of confusion begins.“ _ A Giant Fern

Related links:

dsci @ FB dsci @ stress.fm Click HERE for more stress.fm Station IDs

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #45: FAUST

Faust is a pioneering and influential German rock outfit that blends avant-garde electronics and trippy psychedelia to create a radical musical collage. While contemporaries like Can, Amon Düül II, and Ash Ra Tempel were pushing outward expansively within the confines of what a rock band was capable of, Faust's radical manipulation of editing, production, and studio trickery combined with their "anything goes" compositional approach resulted in some of the genre's most vibrantly diverse albums and set them in a class of their own.

Producer/overseer Uwe Nettelbeck, a onetime music journalist, formed Faust in Wumme, Germany, in 1971 with founding members Jean Hervé Péron, Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Rudolf Sosna, Gunther Wusthoff, and Armulf Meifert. The record label Polydor had asked Nettelbeck to find a German band that could compete with the British and American bands that dominated the scene. Little did they know what they would get instead.

Upon receiving advance money from Polydor, Nettelbeck converted an old schoolhouse into a recording studio, where the group spent the first several months of its existence in almost total isolation, honing its unique cacophonous sound with the aid of occasional guests like minimalist composer Tony Conrad and members of Slapp Happy.

Faust (meaning “fist” in German) was one of the first bands to use the recording studio as an instrument. According to Nettelbeck, "The idea was not to copy anything going on in the Anglo-Saxon rock scene“. They improvised with Industrial noise, generated bizarre hypnotic grooves, indulged in studio-based collages, and dabbled with every conceivable musical genre, sometimes simultaneously. Every now and then they found time for a burst of satirical pop, or occasional waves of delicate ambience.

When Nettelbeck turned his focus away from the group, Faust disbanded in 1975, and the members scattered throughout Germany. However, after more than a decade of playing together in various incarnations, Faust officially reunited around the nucleus of Irmler, Péron, and Diermaier for a handful of European performances at the outset of the 1990s. After two studio albums, Péron left the group in June 1997. From mid-1997 to 2004, Faust toured as Zappi W. Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Steven Wray Lobdell, Lars Paukstat and Michael Stoll, releasing many more studio and live albums.

Diermaier and "art-errorist" Péron reunited in 2005, when Zappi proposed that they start a "new" Faust together with Olivier Manchion and Amaury Cambuzat from Ulan Bator. Faust became two completely different incarnations , both active and each reflecting different aspects of the original band (The other group using the name contains original member Hans Joachim Irmler). With Péron and Diermaier’s latest release, “Just Us” from 2014, Faust is inviting the listeners and other musicians to build new sounds on top of its skeletal compositions. Decades after their freewheeling beginnings, “Just Us” still shows a picture of a band as playful as it is fearless, willing to pick up any object, idea, or unlikely concept and transform it effortlessly into something strange and captivating.

“There is no group more mythical than Faust”

Julian Cope, Krautrocksampler

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #44: FACA MONSTRO FACA MONSTRO is an informal collective based in Porto (Portugal) since 2008. Dwelling in bass heavy, beat driven music coming from the studios/bunkers of some of the most cryptic Porto producers, Faca Monstro joins together HHY (Macumbas, FUJAKO, etc), GHUNA X (Live Low, GHUNAGANGH), CHALLENGER, ACELORIA, EX-PEÃO and many more musicians.

Seduced by the clash of ancient, modern, traditional and contemporary culture, they have spawned demons like CK&P (Drum n' Arabesk) or GHUNAGANGH (satanic grime) and the basis of theirs activity is sporadic boombox meetings throughout town, periodic local nightclub shows and museum comissions. Faca Monstro has close ties with SOOPA and Marvellous Tone. According to their FB page, "You'll mainly get our sounds in mixtapes for download and also albums and ep's, digital or in vinyl format".

Related Links: FACAMONSTRO Facebook FACAMONSTRO Bandcamp Audio interviews [in portuguese]: Pedro Augusto (Ghuna X) Jonathan Saldanha (HHY) & Filipe Silva Click HERE for more stress.fm Station IDs

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #43 : Robert Kidney (15-60-75)

The Numbers Band (aka 15-60-75) are a blues rock and experimental rock band formed in Kent, Ohio, in 1969 by singer/guitarist Robert Kidney and saxophonist Terry Hynde, who together remained the nucleus of the group throughout its decades of existence. Plenty of rock bands have used the blues as a jumping off point and messed with the form to make something new, but hardly anyone pushed the music into a more interesting and innovative direction while staying true to its roots. Though initially steeped in Chicago-style blues, the band quickly began expanding into jazz as well, forging the signature sound they continued to pursue for the duration of their career. Their 1976 debut masterpiece, Jimmy Bell Is Still in Town, a live recording cut a year earlier at Cleveland's Agora Ballroom while opening for Bob Marley & The Wailers, is still considered by many to be one of the best albums ever to come out of Ohio's unique underground music scene. Pere Ubu's David Thomas refers to it as "the only good album ever recorded by anyone". The record manages to capture the band in all their shape-shifting glory, and what's most remarkable is how incredibly tight and unified the band is. The musicians perform with an intense focus that's all the more remarkable when you realize this was a live recording. The band pushes and pulls the sound from all directions, with the rhythm section laying out a steady and propulsive groove, additional percussionists throwing polyrhythms over the bed, the sax players blowing as if possessed by King Curtis and Ornette Coleman at once, the guitarists exploring the cosmos, and Robert Kidney declaiming like the last great undocumented beat poet. You can stream the full album HERE, and buy it HERE. 15-60-75 has been praised by almost every American music publication and several international ones since the beginning of their 30 year career. During all this time, they have never been offered a contract from any recording company in the industry. The majority of their recordings were financed by friends who loved the music enough to put up their money. Their second album was not released until 1982. Throughout the late-80's and early 90's, the Numbers Band released 2 more studio albums, another live recording and a retrospective entitled 15 60 75 Twenty. Their latest album, Inward City, was produced by David Thomas and released in 2009. Robert Kidney and his brother Jack also perform as The Kidney Brothers, and their first CD, Coal Tattoo, came out in 2013 on Chris Cutler's ReR Megacorp Records. The Numbers Band, now comprising the Kidney brothers, Hynde, Bill Watson (bass) and Clint Alguire (drums), are still going strong playing in their hometown circuit today. "It wasn't all steel-mill Stooges action in 1970s Ohio. While Pere Ubu and Devo were in the early stages of mutation, the Numbers Band terrorized local saloons with a future blues of Sun Ra-style sax honk, raga-guitar spinout and funky "Sister Ray" surge: Bonnaroo in a bottle, way ahead of schedule." David Fricke, Rolling Stone

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #42 : Marshall Allen 

Marshall Allen is a free jazz alto saxophone player. He is best known for his work with legendary jazz composer, bandleader, pianist and poet/philosopher Sun Ra, having recorded and performed mostly in this context since the late 1950s, and having led Sun Ra's Arkestra since 1993. Allen is known for his mastery of pyrotechnic effects on the alto - he has said that he "wanted to play on a broader sound basis rather than on chords". He performed almost exclusively with Ra from 1958 until his death in 1993, although he did record outside the Arkestra, notably with Paul Bley's group in 1964. He was also a regular collaborator of Babatunde Olatunji, in the process emerging as one of the first jazz musicians to fuse the avant-garde with traditional African music. Allen developed his own reed instrument (dubbed the "morrow") by attaching a saxophone mouthpiece to an open-hole wooden body. He also guested on live dates and recordings headlined by a multitude of next-generation musicians, including Sonic Youth and Digable Planets. Marshall Allen was born in 1924, in Louisville, KY. After enlisting with the U.S. Army's renowned Buffalo Soldiers in 1942, he played clarinet and alto saxophone with the 17th Division Special Service Band, subsequently forming a trio with pianist Art Simmons and guitarist Don Byas while stationed in Paris. Circa 1956, Allen met Sun Ra, joining the pianist's legendary Arkestra two years later. He would go on to lead its reed section for more than four decades. Allen played on more than 200 Sun Ra recordings. Sun Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up, although certain core members remained with the group through its various incarnations (Marshal Allen, John Gilmore, June Tyson, and others). The Arkestra was by turns called "The Solar Myth Arkestra", "His Cosmo Discipline Arkestra", the "Blue Universe Arkestra", "Myth Science Arkestra", "The Jet Set Omniverse Arkestra", and many other variations. Sun Ra asserted that the ever-changing name of his ensemble reflected the ever-changing nature of his music, which ranged from keyboard solos to big bands of over 30 musicians and touched on virtually the entire story of jazz, from ragtime to swing music, from bebop to free jazz. He also used free improvisation and was one of the early musicians to make extensive use of electronic keyboards. A pioneer of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra and his band began wearing the outlandish, Egyptian-styled or science fiction-themed costumes and headdresses for which they would become known. These costumes had multiple purposes: they expressed Sun Ra's fascination with ancient Egypt and the space age; they provided a distinctive uniform for the Arkestra; they provided a new identity for the band onstage, as well as comic relief (Sun Ra thought avant garde musicians typically took themselves far too seriously). Following Sun Ra's death in 1993, the Arkestra was led by tenor saxophonist John Gilmore. Following Gilmore's death in 1995, the group has performed under the direction of Marshall Allen. Now 90 years old, Allen also serves as recruiter for new members, and potential converts of Sun Ra’s philosophy, once based on space travel and music as a tool for evolution into a new consciousness and tuning into holy vibrations. In addition to giving master classes, lectures, and demonstrations of Sun Ra's enduring creative principles, Allen also founded the El Ra label. "One of the most distinctive and original saxophonists of the postwar era." Jason Ankeny

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #41 : Nisa Venerosa

Drummer/vocalist Nisa Venerosa is one half of Melbourne synth-drums duo Fabulous Diamonds. Together with keyboardist/saxophonist Jarrod Zlatic, they have created an unique brand of spacious, sensual art rock, full of vintage electronics, detached vocals and pounding, tom-heavy drums. An hypnotic web of sound, where minimalist grooves are carried out by primitive drumming patterns over buzzy psychedelic keyboard lines. Their music stands as a 21st Century invocation of the sonic universe of bands like the Silver Apples, Velvet Underground and Suicide. As a creative peculiarity from the diverse Australian music community, Fabulous Diamonds have treaded the fine line between music and art, for roughly seven years. They’ve released two albums and an EP, toured the US with cult label Siltbreeze and been invited to Belgium’s KRAAK Festival. Before that, Zlatic had played with puerile punk band Oh! Belgium, while Venerosa had never been in a band, nor played drums, before taking up with Fabulous Diamonds in 2006. Fabulous Diamonds seems to have stayed pretty constant in its creative vision, from the dub/psychedelia of their self-titled debut album in  2008, to the more stretched-out grooves of their great follow-up (Fabulous Diamonds II, 2010), all the way up to their latest release in 2012, Commercial Music. Produced by Mikey Young (of Aussie bands Total Control and Eddy Current Suppression Ring), the album is less raw-sounding than their previous ones, and has been described as "young adult contemporary pop music". Nisa Venerosa also plays in Bushwalking with bassist Ela Stiles and guitarist Karl Scullin. They debuted with First Time in 2012, followed by No Enter in 2013. "Fabulous Diamonds' heat-hazed mix of punk, psych and dub ranks them among the most original acts in the Australian underground." The Quietus

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #40: Ishmael Butler

Ishmael Butler (aka Ish aka Butterfly aka Palaceer Lazaro) is a musician, MC, producer and main creative force of musical projects like Digable Planets, Cherrywine and, more recently, Shabazz Palaces.

Butler spent his childhood in Seattle, Washington, where he was born in the early 1970s. His father  provided a rich musical environment, exposing him to an extensive jazz collection. As he grew up, he augmented that foundation with rap; he also played saxophone in his teen years. Upon completing high school, he attended the University of Massachusetts on a basketball scholarship but quit before long. He decided instead to earn an education in the music business, taking an internship with Sleeping Bag Records, a New York City-based hip hop label, in the mid-80´s.

Since then, Butler’s path to musical acclaim has been far from linear; the Seattle-based musician forgoes the prestige for the homegrown and keeps a private life away from the stylized glamour that hip hop can provoke. 

Back in the 90´s, Ishmael was part, along with Craig "Doodlebug" Irving and Mary Ann "Ladybug Mecca" Vieira, of the New York hip hop group Digable Planets. They incorporated elements of funk, samba, and psychedelia into their street-savvy hip hop; jazz, in particular, played a pivotal role. The group gave shout-outs to icons Charles Mingus and Charlie Parker, and sampled others, including Sonny Rollins and the Last Poets. They developed a language and style that was unique. After two studio albums and several tours (and commercial success), the Planets dissolved in 1996. After a short musical break, Ishmael Butler released two tracks under the moniker Cherrywine in 2001, followed by the album Bright Black, released in 2003. Ishmael and multi-instrumentalist Tendai 'Baba' Maraire, anonymously self-released in 2009 two EP´s of a new musical project called Shabazz Palaces. Their debut album, Black Up, released in 2011, swooned critics and audiences alike, waxing poetic on identity and black consciousness. It as the first hip hop act to be signed to Sub Pop Records.

Their most recent release, Lese Majesty, dips its toes into stranger sonic waters, leading the listener through a gripping path through the cosmos, colluding oligarchs, and #cake, a stinging commentary on social media-ification of the world at large. The record is styled like a series of suites, listening like a triumphant hip hopera instead of a record. It is considered by many as one of the best albums of 2014  and "the future of hiphop". Shabazz Palaces - along with THEESatisfaction, Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes, OCnotes, Nep Sidhu , Kahlil Joseph and Eric Blood - are also part of an artistic collective of musicians, visual artists and designers called The Black Constellation. It is presented as a "unified cross disciplinary guild of Soothsayers, Makers, Empaths, and Channels [...] The Black Constellation  combines the astral and the earthly;  the gorgeous with the abjectly honest; the ancient with the as of yet unimagined... All the while  remaining in constant communion with the Sacred."*

Listen to Ishmael Butler talking with stress.fm HERE Click HERE for more stress.fm Station ID's

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #39 : Sir Richard Bishop

Sir Richard Bishop is an American composer, guitarist and singer best known for his work with the Sun City Girls, which he formed with his brother Alan Bishop, and Charles Gocher in 1979. Throughout its history SCG has remained a challenging, unpredictable, and eclectic musical unit, operating outside the commercially driven aspirations of the mainstream recording industry. The group has become somewhat of a beacon to independent musicians and artists everywhere. Their music was hugely varied, spreading across genres such as spoken word, free improvisation, jazz and rock. Their records typically incorporated lyrics that rely heavily on their interests in mysticism, paranormal topics (especially UFOs), religious cults and other esoterica, often also manifested in their song titles, lyrics and album art. Performances by the group were often wildly unpredictable, sometimes verging on performance art, with elaborate costumes, kabuki-inspired makeup, and the creation of a festive, ritualistic atmosphere with audience participation. In a 26 year career, SCG went on to release nearly 30 official albums since then, along with countless limited-edition vinyl, cassette, and CD-R projects, making the group's discography almost impossible to completely document. 

Relocating to Seattle in the early '90s, Sun City Girls established their own label, Abduction Records, as well as an archival imprint, Sublime Frequencies - a label dedicated to acquiring and releasing obscure sights and sounds from Africa, India, S.E. Asia and beyond. The releases are primarily divided into four categories: field recordings, folk and pop compilations, radio collages from specific geographic locales, and DVDs. Richard Bishop released his first solo work in 1998 on John Fahey's Revenant Records label. With it Bishop displayed his penchant for absorbing and incorporating stylistic approaches from all around the world into his music, which continued with more rawness on his next two releases, Improvika (2004) and Fingering The Devil (2006). Bishop returned to more structured compositions with his fourth release and after the death of Sun City Girls' percussionist Charles Gocher in 2007, his solo work became his primary focus. "Global sound explorer whose unique blend of ethno-folk, raga droning, and gypsy-inspired picking has placed him at the vanguard of guitar experimentation." All Music Guide

Click HERE to listen to Sir Richard Bishop's interview with stress.fm Click HERE for more stress.fm Station IDs

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #38 : Jesse Paul Miller

Jesse Paul Miller is an American visual/sound artist and musician who's been exploring many realms of creating, from drawing, painting and sculpture to audio releases, radio broadcasts and installation. Miller has been involved in a variety of music projects and bands, most notoriously Factums, who have, since 2004, released 6 albums featuring a unique mix of lo-fi punk, sound collage and noise, somewhat reminiscent of the musical areas explored by Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and The Residents. One of the many highlights in their discography, Alien Native, is available on the Siltbreeze label. Miller's other music projects and collaborations include work with Sun City Girls, Climax Golden Twins, Aframes, 4shadows, Dave Knott, Eric Lanzilotta, Robert Millis, and others. In 2005, Miller began a series of travels through Southeast Asia. During these trips he amassed a collection of field recordings and music which he has self-released in CD-Rs, now digitally available at his Bandcamp page. Selections from these recordings are now being released in December 2014 on the Sublime Frequencies label. You can listen to samples and order it HERE. Miller’s visual work is based on themes relating to spirituality, location, memory, imagination, ephemera, and metaphysics; considering all to be layers of reference in which to combine. His work has been seen and heard in the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and is included in the collection of the Seattle Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Western Bridge, and numerous private collections. His most recent body of paintings are inspired by his travels through Asia. He currently lives in Seattle, where he continues to draw, paint, play music and assemble recordings. "While industrial music hasn't had a real resurgence that's made an impact like its initial footprint with Throbbing Gristle and COUM Transmissions in the mid 70's, the current blossoming crop of contumacious and anti-image based 'bands' like Factums and their melodically corrupt circle of conspirators could easily be the original formula's righteous second coming." Todd Killings, Victim of Time

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #37: Martin Bisi

Martin Bisi is an American producer and songwriter. In 1979, he started B.C. Studios (formerly named OAO Studios) with Bill Laswell and Brian Eno in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. B.C. Studios has since become a staple of the New York music scene, and it is also where Bisi lives, having moved to that (at the time) largely uninhabited area of Brooklyn to convert the multi-floored building into a living space and studio over two decades ago. Throughout the 80's and 90's, BC Studio was a nexus for the New York underground: John Zorn’s Archery, Yankees, Locus Solus and Spy Vs Spy and Naked City’s Torture Garden were recorded there, as were Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising and Evol; Foetus’s Thaw; Swans’ The Burning World, Love Of Life and The Great Annihilator; Last Exit’s Iron Path; and albums for Afrika Bambaata, Boredoms, Herbie Hancock, Cop Shoot Cop, Helmet and more. Martin Bisi has also recorded and released several albums and EP's of his original work since the late 80's. His latest album, Ex-Nihilo, was released in 2014. It was inspired "in part by the upheavals of the financial crisis, including street protests in the sonically impressive glass canyons of lower Manhattan, and the drama of the times and New York City in general". In 2014, Ryan C. Douglass and Sara Leavitt released their documentary Sound and Chaos: The Story of BC Studio, where the past history of the studio comes out through a lot of conversations with Bisi and the screening of archival footage of bands throughout the studio’s thirty-three year history.   As it's shown in the film, Bisi and the rest of the Gowanus artistic community uneasily await a deluge of evictions, as the neighborhood’s buildings are sold off to crowds of yuppies and trendoids. But, although the future of BC Studio is in question, Bisi continues living and running the place. "Martin Bisi has literally had his finger on the pulse of some of the most vital underground movements to take place in music over the last 30 years." NY Press 

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #36 : Ernest Gibson

Ernest Gibson is a musician based in Los Angeles who, last year, released his solo debut on the always interesting Danish label Skrot Up. The album, titled "Island Records", has been considered by many to be one of the best and most original releases of 2013. "Island Records" invokes aspects of dub, exotica, lo-fi, psychedelic and post-punk into a dark and cinematographic sonic trip - or, as Julian Cope described it: "Sounding at times like side two of Joy Division's "Closer" as performed by the first 13th Floor Elevators line-up, "Island Records" defies analysis and just forces you to repeat and repeat this sucker endlessly." Gibson is also one-half of the experimental psych duo Net Shaker. He's currently working on the follow up to "Island Records". "From the sun-bleached groves and terminal beaches of the Southland comes Ernest Gibson’s debut LP—a weathered, mysteriously adorned block of sonic timber, soaked in watery reverb and awash in sinewy skeins of damaged tape. Island Records ventures ever deeper into dense primeval territory, only roughly intimated on his prior releases and further still from the scorched-earth urbanism of his group Net Shaker’s recent long-player. Trading those sputters of failing machinery and abstract paranoia for more hypnotic twilight vibrations, Gibson coaxes his own strain of mutant exotica from this suite of thirteen serpentine compositions." Skrot Up

Island Records by Ernest Gibson

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #35 : Don Howland

Don Howland is an American musician and recording artist who has been creating a unique and influential body of work that is as vital and potent now as it was 3 decades ago. He is best known for founding seminal punk blues outfits The Gibson Bros and The Bassholes, other music projects include A Burning Bus and Wooden Tit. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Howland first joined The Great Plains, playing bass under the pseudonym of Hank O'Hare. Together with Jeffrey Evans (later of '68 Comeback), Howland formed The Gibson Bros in the mid 80s. Their unique blend of raunchy country/blues and primitive lo-fi punk paved the way for groups like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. In the early 90s, sometime around the dissolution of Spencer's previous band Pussy Galore, he and his wife joined an incarnation of the Gibson Bros. During one tour Howland played a cassette of obscure bluesman RL Burnside for Spencer. Years later, Jon Spencer would record and tour with Burnside, exposing his music to a new audience. In 1992, after the Gibson Bros split, Howland formed The Bassholes - a two piece featuring Howland on guitar and vocals and Rich Lillash on drums, which single handedly started the whole lo-fi-two-man-blues-band genre, almost a decade before The White Stripes released their first album. The Bassholes are basically a solo vehicle for Howland's unique musical vision - a stripped-down, raw, blues-infected racket with dark surreal lyrics, reminiscent of the "Old Weird America" of the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music. Bassholes' records are, for the most part, extremely lo-fi affairs recorded on the cheap, connecting folk's one room microphone ambience with punk rock's DIY ethics. Even though the same influences that informed Howland when he was with the Gibsons continue to reverberate in what he does, the Bassholes have created a wild and varied catalog, being just as likely to cover Joy Division as Blind Lemon Jefferson, and incorporating an idiosyncratic assortment of ideas lyrically and sonically. After Lillash left the band, Howland joined up with then-19-year-old drummer Bim Thomas (which in 2011 became the sonic monster OBNOX). The pairing proved fruitful as Thomas' enthusiastic, seemingly free-form drumming provided a launch pad for Howland's electric open string howling and wailing. Thomas refers to Howland as a music mentor, and he makes a point of covering his songs with OBNOX, as a way "to keep him in the conversation". Even though Howland currently lives in North Carolina and Thomas is in Cleveland, the pair still gets together frequently to record new albums. Their last two records, "And Without A Name" (2009) and "Boogieman Stew" (2013), are two powerful sonic masterpieces, and undoubtedly some of the finest music the duo has ever recorded. Other high points from the Bassholes discography include "When My Blue Moon Turns Red Again" (1998) and "Long Way Blues" (1996-98). But needless to say, all the band's releases are highly recommended and worth listening to. Throughout his extensive music career Howland has maintained a day job as a school teacher, and at some point was a music writer, contributing articles to publications such as the Village Voice and Spin. Howland was also a member of the Columbus underground super-group Ego Summit (featuring Mike Rep, Jim Shepard, Ron House and Tommy Jay) which in 1997 released the aptly titled "The Room Isn't Big Enough". In 2012, he recorded a solo album, "The Land Beyond The Mountains", which music writer Richie Unterberger described as a "macabre mix of psychobilly, swamp rock, and Captain Beefheartian avant-garde weirdness." "A lot of bands mellow with age. It's so prevalent among punk bands, that it's become pretty much a joke. (…) In the case of the Bassholes, this is patently fucking false. The Bassholes, eschewing the trope above, seem to change with the world at large, getting stranger and meaner, as the environment dictates. A two-headed monster, evolving in the fallout, into a mutant beast screeching and echoing the cacophony of western life in the year after the world was supposed to end. It's been 13 years since their debut and the Bassholes are definitely weirder and more dangerous than ever" Columbus Discount Records

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #34 : OBNOX

There has been many great garage and noise rock bands proliferating since the beginning of this century, but there's one artist who stands head and shoulders above all the rest, and that is one man soul-punk bomb OBNOX. Since 2011, he has been forging a unique and impressive body of work with nine highly recommended releases which smash punk, noise, rock, soul, pop and hip-hop into a feedback soaked rhythmic roller coaster, the likes of which don't come around very often. It might look raw but it sounds cooked - behind all the cacophony of gloriously sculpted white noise, there's a consistent sense of melody and song structure which, after your ear drums have been chewed and spat out, makes you want to go back for another spin. OBNOX is the alias of Lamont "Bim" Thomas, a resident of Cleveland, Ohio, who's been the powerhouse drummer behind a who's who of recent Ohio post-punk bands, including Bassholes, This Moment in Black History, Puffy Areolas and The Unholy Two. Thomas has spent a lifetime immersed in music. Upon settling in Columbus he stumbled onto the city's fervent underground music scene and got a job at Used Kids Records, according to himself "one of the best record stores in the country", which provided him with a bastion of knowledge on a huge variety of music styles. There he met Don Howland, a former member of the legendary Gibson Bros (a group which paved the way for bands like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion), and became the drummer for Howland's blues punk power duo The Bassholes. Their partnership has lasted over a decade and has produced a string of great records including "And Without a Name", "When My Blue Moon Turns Red Again" and  many others. Thomas then moved to Cleveland in the early 2000's and became involved in a number of other notorious local bands like heavy-psych rock trashers Puffy Areolas and the post-punk/hardcore group This Moment in Black History. In 2011 OBNOX was born with the debut "I'm Bleeding Now", which sold out so quickly that a reissue was necessary only a year later. Thomas says that he wanted "to do a recording that was raw and blown out, done quickly for cheap". The album was finished in seven days. “I’m into the recorded arts," he explains "but I like to work quickly and effectively. I don’t feel like sitting around trying to be McCartney and Lennon holed up in the studio for a month-- all the feeling goes away.” This refusal to overthink is perhaps what gives Thomas’s projects such thrilling immediacy. The result is a potent mixture of Ohio punk rock and Detroit soul where the needle is always in the red. Thomas explains his recording process as building up layers of rhythm as the basis, and later adding vocals for melodies - "like James Brown, it was just rhythm, and the next thing you know, Maceo's blowing, and there's your melody." Though OBNOX is essentially a solo project, Thomas has often included guest contributions, drawing on the many musicians he's encountered in Ohio over the years, like guitarist Bill Weita from Fuzzhead. A year after "I'm Bleeding Now", OBNOX released a series of great EPs - "Masonic Reducer" (a title referencing Cleveland's legendary proto-punkers Rocket From The Tombs), "Purple Reign" and "Rojo" - a sonic monster of rhythmical noise, krautrock drones and the free jazz skronk of the Impulse/ESP record masters. "Rojo", described by Thomas as "noisy as fuck with some kind of African freakbeat, and with some sprinkles of Can", is an intense and powerful work, and one of the highest points in his discography. In 2013, Thomas kept his extremely prolific pace by releasing another string of excellent EPs - "Smoky Woody Haze", "A Ragin' in the Sun", "Canabible Ohio" and "Three Times Dope" - and topped it all with the astonishing double LP "Corrupt Free Enterprise", which has been included in the top position of countless best-of-2013 releases. Considered to be his boldest and most ambitious work yet, the album wastes no time taking a hammer to the eardrum and making blood rush to the head with the opener "By Myself", which then transitions to the sex-jam sonic propeller "(I Want To) Fuck You Like A Puma". As CFE unravels there's layers of psychedelia, funk, soul and hip hop experimentalism among the blasted shards of punk and noise. As Thomas digs through his record collection for inspiration, CFE builds up into a cohesive, knowledgeable album, which destroys rock and roll in order to recreate it in all its chaotic and energetic glory. His vision is so complete that it's difficult to tell without liner notes whether any given song is an original or a cover. And there's plenty of both on this record, including catchy renditions of Tom Waits' theme from The Wire "Way Down in the Hole" and the Cheater Slicks' "Ghost". "Louder Space", OBNOX's 10th release, is set to come out in 2014. Until then, you can find OBNOX music HERE and HERE, and don't forget to visit his soundcloud page. "An artist of unparalleled brilliance. (...) What OBNOX does is destroy your speakers with a phalange of sound... from Soul to Hip Hop to Trash and Nasty Blues. Over a slew of releases, Lamont Thomas has redefined expectation, and fucked with yr head, spinning transistor crackle into full fledged rawk'n'roll... (...) Grab every damn record you can... You'll be sorry if you missed 'em..." Big Rock Candy Mountain

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Stress Jingle/Station ID #33 : Omega Dub Experience

The OMEGA DUB EXPERIENCE project was born in 2012, when some people who have known each other due to various past compilations started to work together more regulary. Influenced by Roni Size and LTJ Bukem, they aim to create melodic, accessible drum'n'bass / jungle with poetic, lyrical vocal lines and jazzy approaches. This project is an online collaboration by three people: BLACK SATURN (USA) - vocals, lyrics also in Black Saturn, Black Saturn vs. Subduxtion KANZA (Netherlands) - bass, programming, samples also in Cold Metal Future, Bassookah DØD BEVERTE (USA) - keyboards also in Dethcentrik, Død Beverte You can find their music available for free download at the Internet Archive: Victory Over The Sun, The Bankruptcy Jazz and Lonely Waters.

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