ReR are listing The Biota Box, containing Funnel to a Thread (their last but one, which I haven't heard), Half a True Day, Invisible Map, Object Holder (possibly the greatest album I know) and the Mnemonist’s Gyromancy (meh), and a bonus CD of rare and unreleased music. Does anyone know more about this, or have heard it yet?
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
It seems to me a very random collection of titles for a box...
^ What's even stranger is the overlap with the Mnemonists, as I always had the idea that the namechange was a manoeuvre intended to signal their rather paradigmatic shift from a studio post-processed near-industrial sound to that organic style of montage they would later perfect as Biota.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
Indeed. Is this meant to be a 'best of'?Originally Posted by spacefreak
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
Do you mean the best by the band, or your greatest album of all time, by anyone?
If the latter I need to pick it up and give it a shot...
I mean by anyone ever. YMMV.
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
Yeah. If this was a proper box, I'd have interest (at least price dependent). I thought all their stuff was released on RER but perhaps not...
Please don't ask questions, just use google.
Never let good music get in the way of making a profit.
I'm only here to reglaze my bathtub.
By all means no. Any collection that omits Rackabones is far from a best of...
Has Rackabones ever been released on CD? I haven't seen Awry or Biota on CD either. I agree that Rackabones is one of their best albums. It is also quite different from their other albums.
^ Rackabones has never seen a CD-release, AFAIR because the members (Katsimpalis main driver) specifically created it to format. The band still retains some of their previous Mnemonist-antics here, althought the electronics- and tapework is giving way to organic soundprocessing.
Awry was an EP and arguably their oddest. It's also their only release where the relation to French act Hellebore appears musically 'natural', a couple of Biota members having contributed artwork to the sleeve of Hellebore's Il y a des Jours a few years previously. Seeing as Biota were always a project it took a long time to listen to, these miniatures offer relief and a quite different perspective on their mode of unity in "song".
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
I can't see that Rackabones was made for the LP format more than their other releases. They only did LPs at that time. The early Mnemonists/Biota albums were half music and half visual art, and the visual art part had of course to be minimised when they switched to the CD format. There are still nice booklets with lots of art, but that can never be the same as the portfolio of prints that came with the LPs. However, that didn't stop them from re-releasing the other early LPs on CD. So why didn't they release Rackabones, Biota and Awry on CD? The music is still very good and deserves to be heard by a newer audience.
^ This is all true, of course, but I wasn't being precise; they obviously always work from format, whether vinyl (as on Rackabones' four pieces, one to each side), but there was an interview way back with (I believe) Katsimpalis in which he expressed something along the line of "format being determining factor in the creative process", as also witnessed on their later releases on which there are continuous flows of music and sonics. From this I simply interpreted how he might not be all that interested in seeing large works like Rackabones transferred.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
I remember having read the same interview where he mentioned the direct connection of the music's timespan to the double vinyl format. Cannot recall where exactly it was since it's been ages; in Audion probably...
There are links to interesting interviews with William Sharp from their website: http://biotamusic.com/articles.html. Among other things they talk about the change of format from LP to CD in the 1994 interview:
Q: "I'd like to know if, from the point of view of the visual possibilities it offered, you mourn the demise of the LP."
A: "Absolutely. It is likely that some visual pieces that directly apply to our sound activities will simply not reproduce adequately at CD size. This dilemma has already surfaced as we try to adapt earlier LP packages for CD reissue. But, for the future, we certainly look forward to designing visual packages around the format's many possibilities. Intricacy of line and color, presented densely in the tiny format, can be highly involving for the viewer yet difficult to plumb. In this way, I find the format very appropriate in conjunction with the sound component of our projects."
When ReR released their first CD, Tumble, they wanted to explore the capabilities of the new format. At that time it was possible to use index points within a track, which they made use of. In addition they suggested alternative track orders.
^ Which is basically what I remember Katsimpalis saying in that old interview (which may have been Audion, as Spyros' suggested); he called the recording a tableau, compared LP-sides to canvas and the chosen instrumentation (or sources and found sounds) to palette. Which I suppose is kinda fitting when you go back to Biota's pre-CD releases. They would occasionally work from the setting of a timer, then yield the contents according to possible and/or adjustable duration. Post-Processing, in this context, rendered the final result anything but improvisational - although they are often referred to as such. Very little of what is heard on those records is random or "accidental", although the initial mode of performance might have involved impulsive traits.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
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