Markly Morrison, Eli Moore, Lindsay Schief, Andrew Dorsett, Ashley Eriksson, Adam Oelsner
Influences
Inspirations: Mike Dumovich, Tucker Martine, Steve Moore, Phil Elverum, Adrian Orange, Calvin Johnson, the sound of the trumpet, Eli Reitz. These are all artists from the west coast!
Milton Nascimento, Tinariwen, Omar Souleiman, Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethania: these are artists from around the world.
Karl Blau hails from Skagit Valley. I'm a solo touring/recording artist who also plays in the bands D+, Your Heart Breaks, sometimes in the band LAKE, and with Generifus, Calvin Johnson, Mount Eerie, Boys from Deer Park to name a few.
I've been somewhat obsessed with lots of music from Africa and music made by descendants of Africa over the last dozen years ( and really my whole life). I saw concerts of Waldemar Bastos, Abdullah Ibrahim(Dollar Brand), Omar Souleyman, and Joe Higgs and I have to say they've been my favorite experiences of live music. Is there a common thread? The shows all made me want to move, in fact I couldn't possibly sit still to the rhythms. Therefore, I tend to attribute elements of rhythm of any sort to African influence.
I consider music to be an open field. The possibilities of music are becoming more diverse with each day I am experiencing music of different cultures that are now within earshot thanks to the interweb. Here on the North West corner of the US, it seems like we're at the edge of the Earth. Everything is equally way far away; so, it's all fair game. The idea of merging all these sounds together the styles of Ananda Shankar with country and western music, or infusing metal with African beats is very exciting, though the results may be terrifying. Open field.
Last winter I decided to start a collection of songs recorded at Dub Narcotic in Olympia that would pay my respects to influences of African people and people of African heritage. Now it's finished and it's entitle "ZEBRA." Seems sorta corny at first, the name ZEBRA. Perhaps cornier still is "White with black stripes or black with white stripes," but it all plays in to something deeper. Probably more than anything, the album sounds Northwest to me. The flavor of the chord changes is mostly classic NW. E major with C major, etc. You know that smell. Plus, I've been really into the feeling of major melodies on top of minor progressions and vice versa... This record will be out at the beginning of October, coming up fast!
Here in the player window is a few new songs. Please enjoy these recordings.
Included are a couple songs from Zebra in the player.
Two songs from my previous K release Nature's Got Away -- "It's the Stars" and "Stream of Ganders"-- take home the whole album from your local independent record store.
"96" is the title track from my new 4-track record (à la Dance Positive). It's coming out on KLAPS in the next couple weeks, but confusingly enough it is on sale now via my Kelp website here or through K records distro here.
"That's How I Got To Memphis" was produced by Tucker Martine and it features his group Mount Analog as the band (that's me on bass and slide guitar!).
I began writing songs and recording like crazy when I was about 19 until I was 25 or so. My best friend suggested I start a record label where I record an album a month as a way to focus what I'm doing and just to try something crazy. I called it Kelp Monthly when it began in 2004 - and it did exactly that for the first year. Until now, Kelp has only released 29 records (with the release of freshly printed "96"). To reflect that slower pace, and my findings that all music we hear is ripped off of some other musicians, I changed the name to Kelp Lunacy Advanced Plagiarism Society or KLAPS for short. This label offers the curious an intimate look into the recording art that I am questioning and redefining each issue. Mostly it's Blau songs, but also recordings of other people, even recordings of other people's making if it fits and it's awesome.
The downloads to almost the entire KLAPS catalogue are available right here on this myspace site, plus some older 4-track recordings are downloadable here. SORRY in advance for having way too many recordings available, and I'll use this apology to segue into how I'm going to start exclusively selling iPods of my entire catalog not really.
An amazing show tonight at the Ike box. I've been wanting to hear "into the nada" for years now; also I'm so happy to learn the captivating quasi-plagiaristic back story, ha!
I'm excited to see you again, whenever you end up coming back through Oregon.
Now that we're back from tour, I feel I can finally send you that blessing of ease and grace you asked me to send when you were leaving. Hope you all are staying well out there, meeting beautiful people, and treating yourselves (and each other) like the beautiful people you are. Take care. -Joshua
hello karl. here's a photo of you performing with Finally Punk in vienna. you can find some more on my flickr page :) hope you're dong OK, andi http://www.flickr.com/photos/fett_kakao/
