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New self-titled debut album produced and recorded in NYC by Martin
Bisi (The Dresden Dolls, Sonic Youth, Live Skull, Lydia Lunch,
CopShootCop, Foetus, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, + more) NOW
available for download through iTunes and on disc at
http://cdbaby.com/cd/bfofopium.
The new album is available through Newbury Comics & Looney Tunes
stores in the metro Boston area, Other Music in NYC, and other select
stores throughout the country. Distribution through Carrot Top.
Press Quotes:
"Black Fortress of Opium are a brawling, dark monster of a band that
seems like it should be playing shows with, say, Nicki Jaine or the
Dresden Dolls rather than Gogol Bordello." – Ned Raggett, All Music
Guide
"Would suit a David Lynch bar scene" – Muruch
"Intensity and dark regality… dominant feelings of haunting,
other-worldliness and mystique…Black Fortress of Opium truly makes you
believe that you just may be listening to something highly
monumental." – Northeast Performer Magazine
"This album's a great and daring thing." – collectedsounds.com
"The group plays hypnotic, often mesmerizing songs that unwind with a
darkly slinky sensuality, sometimes exploding in rage. Think Elysian
Fields, Bee & Flower or Botanica at their blackest and bleakest, with
a more ambient sensibility. This is a sensationally good ipod album.
And if the band only plays the cd's basic tracks onstage, they should
be awesome live." – Lucid Culture NYC
"You needn't be a visitor to a drug den to be carried far, far away by
this album's potent blend. BFO don't sound quite like anyone else,
and their sense of dynamics and urgency makes them a truly interesting
new band…coming through loud and clear on this amazing debut, and if
its exotic stylings were any stronger, they might induce
hallucinations...or at least permanent rejection of conformity" –
Playback STL
"The music is simultaneously exotic and familiar yet it transports me
to an older world." - Noise Magazine
"Ajda the Turkish Queen lures you with her voice, tells her deepest
secrets, and generally draws you in to a gorgeous netherworld. But
Black Fortress of Opium is also a flesh-and-blood band that teams her
with some of Boston's more creative players; they can haunt with
melody and rock with abstraction. This one is a pleasure to get lost
in." - Brett Milano, Boston Phoenix music writer & author of The Sound
of Our Town
"BFO's music is filled with shimmering darkness, pierced by Ajda's
often wraithlike vocals, and marked by dynamic tension." - Nick Zaino,
Boston Globe
Biography
In 2006, lyricist/multi-instrumentalist Ajda the Turkish Queen,
originally from Houston, Texas met up with Boston, Massachusetts
guitarist Tony Savarino. Inspired by the lore surrounding a little
town in Turkey - Afyonkarahisar, which means 'Black Fortress of Opium'
– they shortly thereafter formed the band Black Fortress of Opium
together with Joe Turner (drums). Much lore surrounds the history of
this place, Afyonkarahisar, where an ancient fortress is perched atop
a hill.
Uniting Black Fortress of Opium's songs is the distinctive sound of
female vocals, varying from powerful and soulful to soft and
plaintive, combined with American folk instruments and a heady brew of
electric guitars that float, swoop, and soar over fluid drumming.
The songs speak of life, love, misery, and the human condition.
