CURRENT:Robin Amos (synth), Glenn Jones (guitar, bouzouki, electric saz and sitar, contraption), Jonathan LaMaster (bass, violin, and occasional vocals), Gavin McCarthy (x-Karate drummer newly welcomed to the fold as of 9/06) + Jonathan Williams (engineer, producer, and collaborator).
PAST MEMBERS: Jake Trussell (laptop, turntables, bass), Jon Proudman (drums), Chris Gutmacher (drums), Michael Knoblach (drums), Chris Fujiwara (bass), Michael Bloom (bass), Yuri Zbitnoff (drums).
Influences
Can, Neu, Cluster, Hendrix, Einsturzende Neubauten, John Fahey and "American Primitive" music, blues, film music (especially Bernard Herman), psychedelia, surf rock, electronic music, industrial, free jazz and middle eastern modalities.
Sounds Like
“Pulsing with air-raid analog synth, sweltering art-surf guitar and agro jazz-rock drumming” Guitar Player magazine.
"Cul de Sac's rerouting of expressway rhythms through expansive modal territories, heady delayed Hawaiian guitar and amorphous clouds of streaming electronics felt ahead of the game when they emerged in 1992...Right now Cul de Sac are making their way accross America as Damo Suzuki's backing group. The pairing might make it easier to join the dots between Can's obsessive rhythmic jamming and Cul de Sac's whirlpool mantras, but the sense of boundless continental space in Cul de Sac's music is no one's but their own." David Keenan, The Wire
". . . there's a group called Cul de Sac -- very ambient, very cool." --Lou Reed (Interviewed in Mojo)
CURRENT BIO: Cul de Sac, a band whose name was taken from a Roman Polanski film, is Boston's original post rock granddaddy. (Many cite Simon Reynolds as the instigator of this term, coined for Cul de Sac back in 1991 in an issue of Melody Maker.) Formed in 1989, the band has toured or played with such luminaries as Sonic Youth, The Boredoms, Yo La Tengo and Faust. The band is currently comprised of Glenn Jones on guitar, bouzuki and electric saz, Robin Amos on synth, Jonathan LaMaster on bass, violin, and occasional vocals, and Gavin McCarthy on drums. Since the year 2000, the band has recorded 4 albums for their current label (Strange Attractors Audio House), appeared on numerous compilations (with one of those tracks appearing here on our MySpace player, a blend of two Franco Battiato compositions that appeared on the recent Italian comp. "What's Your Function" for Silly Boy Entertainment), composed the soundtrack to the Roger Corman film The Stranglers Wife, and made numerous appearances in other films including a documentary about performance artist David Blaine by filmaker Harmony Korrine, and the Warp Records soundtrack to the Scotish indie film Dead Mans Shoes". The band has aggressively toured nationally and (more prominently) internationally in recent years, sometimes backing legendary Damo Suzuki, ex-vocalist for the early 70's version of german band "Can". Cul de Sac's most recent album, Abhayamudra, is a live double cd with Damo on vocals (culled from over 50 performances spanning 4 tours of Europe, the US, and Canada), a track from which also appears here on our MySpace player. Pulsing with air-raid analog synth, sweltering art-surf guitar and agro jazz-rock drumming Guitar Player magazine.
THE ORIGINS OF CUL DE SAC, AS WRITTEN BY NICK KEMPER FOR ALL MUSIC GUIDE:
"Shunning the burgeoning alternative rock movement, Cul de Sac intertwined elements of surf rock, Krautrock, Middle Eastern trance and folk music, post-rock psychedelia, and avant-garde to create a unique blend that garnered immediate critical attention. Formed in the early '90s by guitarist Glenn Jones, multi-instrumentalist Robin Amos, formerly of the Girls, and Bullet La Volta drummer Chris Guttmacher, Cul de Sac released their first LP, Ecim, on the independent Northeastern label. Bassist and filmmaker Chris Fujiwara played on the release as well and became a permanent member of the band. In addition, steel guitarist and fiddler Ed Yazijian and tape manipulator/ collagist Phil Milstein performed on Ecim. Dredd Foole guested on vocals, but most of Cul de Sac's material on this and later releases was instrumental. According to Jones, Yazijian left the band because they were "too loud"; he later joined Kustomized.
Early live shows were enhanced by the experimental films of Fujiwara and A.S. Hamrah, adding to the band's eclectic mystique. After a series of singles, a compilation of rehearsal jams was packaged and released as a second LP in 1995 as I Don't Want to Go to Bed, an interesting low-fi collection. Cul de Sac collaborated with the legendary John Fahey on 1996's The Epiphany of Glenn Jones. Three years later the group released the full-length Crashes to Light, Minutes to Its Fall. The members of Cul de Sac steadfastly oppose categorization. Their original compositions and recordings have been enhanced by instruments of their own creation, including the Contraption and the Incantor."
-I have already seen documentaries that talks about the topic, where it is said that all these images that seem like flowers or etc. who are seen in "the extrasensory states" as it has been described in many cultures across the history of the humanity. Some of them with hallucinations for some stimulant or with near to the death experiences where there are liberated many nice chemicals who also produce the same perception. But recently I found something very interesting. There is a Russian, Alexander Balankin, that devotes himself to the fractal mechanics. And between the applications that they have found there are quite interesting ones. These fractals are related to the Chaos Theory. That is the only way of describing how a mess is produced with small changes in a seemingly simple function. And also these chaotic behaviors also have repetitions, or, it seems chaotic but turns so repetitive that forms something that even seems harmonic. The snow flakes, the pollen in the flowers, Human Behaviour etc.
Do you know, the breakfast we had together so long ago was the Best I can ever recall? It's true, so thank you for helping to make it so! Happy Winterwonderwelt to y'all. xo
Hey guys! I thought you might enjoy these wacky stripper impersonation pictures of Jonathan. Jon-thanks again for hanging out with us. It was a lot of fun...hope to see you again, next time in SF! *e
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