A spectacle of spectacles pounding rhythms and wails to the likes of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jane’s Addiction and The Mars Volta, she comes with the Sirens’ songs from a most peculiar place of all places... Chengdu, China
"I find myself awaking in anger, disappointment... wanting to be in different conditions, an army, not an army"
the things around us... sticks, trucks, babies, sand, dirt, shovels and the people using them, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Hegel, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Mars Volta, viatamins, Jane’s Addiction, Painting, the other people in the band, Henry Kissinger, the many gods and philosophers of the ages, Daniel Boorstin, Salahoudin, Arthur Rimbaud, socks, bare feet, smoking, running, kung-fu, breakfast, tea, mach speeds, silence, my ankles, the question of ambition, morality, epistemology, people, visions of grandeur, visions of of being on a farm building a house... building houses is a lost skill... We also like to help build houses... Habitat for Humanity, Immanuel Kant and Nietszche... our many mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters... Its hard to say... even a bowl of noodles has some impact.
Sounds Like
It is said that "certain ideas will be stopped at all cost"
and I'm almost certain at some point there will be a thorn in the side...
Midi Festival Picks by Ian Sherman "Proximity Butterfly: Great name, great hair, great band. This multi-national Chengdu based outfit has been rocking its reverb-laden Siamese-Dream-on-the-moon tunes for a couple of years now to ever-increasing attention, tearing up stages all over China in the process." Time Out Beijing Magazine, May 2008.
"On stage, loyal to their view of music as a part of human experience and a show of 'celebration and togetherness,' Proximity Butterfly delivers an overwhelming audio-visual performance." Music from the Margins by Motty Henoch, Nanjing 2007
"Proximity Butterfly/???? is one of Chengdu's most established rock bands." Chengdoo Magazine, June 2007
Album Five- The Antikythera Mechanism (2008 release; LUDI Music) *Available for Digestion*
Album Four- Poltergeist: Cinerarium (2008 Self-release; Butterfly Temples
Third Album (Live at Little Bar's New Year, Chengdu 2006)
Second Album- Arcana (2006) available for download at Last.fm
First Demo Album- Self-Titled (2005)
Compilation DVDs (2005 & 2006)
"...the alchemists stir up hope and give [me] insight into the work of the Greek-like polytheism, the constant flux of various fates and mysticisms"
Carl Parer's Film "The Return" available at www.carlparker.com with Proximity Butterfly providing the soundtrack. Copyright 2008
Carl Parker's "The Return" , filmed from 2005-2007, is an epic journey of its own kind. Unlike your BBC favorites, Carl rides, films, and produces entirely independent of any crew. He scales the western less explored regions of China with anthropological honesty... He captures the Zeitgeist of this niche and case of survival.
Directed and Produced by Carl Parker Soundtrack by Chengdu's very own Proximity Butterfly (变色蝴蝶)
The soundtrack features Tracks from Arcana, Poltergeist: Cinerarium and The Antikythera Mechanism all available in digital and hard copy in stores throughout China and upon request at: proximitybutterfly@gmail.com
Proximity Butterfly is a highly philosophically charged project that began in Chengdu, China in the August of 2003. PB consists of a drummer, bassist, guitarist, saxophone/ clarinet/ trumpet and eyes like angels coming from Canada, Germany, France and America. The story of the band expresses the maturity that exists in its seriousness towards the human subject. "It becomes the conundrum of itself; that which brings her flight and being."
Joshua Love: "I left Cleveland with quite a large philosophical... dissatisfaction. I couldn’t really understand people, why they did what they did. Basically, people drank until they were blind, shot up, snorted whatever they could find, sucked down late night martinis and complained about their jobs being too hard or something... It showed me really what America had become... a place in need of a revitalized eye. I tried starting a newsletter and couldn’t seem to get anything musical going in that city. Everyone had a plan, but no one followed through with it. Seemed like the end of that life was about getting a job to buy things you needed to get a new job for... boat cruises and front lawns. A close friend of mine was pretty coked out all of the time and her house eventually became more trash and stains than anything else. She was still recovering from coming home to her previous boyfriend shooting himself in the face with a shotgun. The pill brigade was the direction everyone was going. So I went to California to breath..."
"I had been working in a self-built studio in Cleveland for 2 years and recording some ideas that I knew could get some dreams moving, but again I couldn’t find anyone to share this stuff with. So, I planned some volunteer work in Guatemala. When I got back from building houses outside of Coatepeque, along Guatemala’s border with Mexico, I realized that the kind of growth I needed wasn’t going to come from staying in the U.S. I quickly made arrangements to move to China, to relocate myself philosophically. I needed to challenge my ideas, my ways of living, thinking, and Being."
"After about a year and a half of being in China lecturing and teaching, the possibility of opening up some doors, meeting musicians, artists, etc, seemed all the more possible. And what was needed to begin was passion, creativity and people that weren’t afraid to just follow they’re creative colors... and that is exactly what happened..."
We’re dealing with a lot of stifling forces in China because we’re both a local and foreign band... and it reminds me of a story a hundred or so years ago in the south of China a foreigner, walking to the gates of the city, was stoned to death before he even reached the walls... because he was not Chinese. We live in a world of hatred, and battling that with love and legitimacy isn’t as simple as it sounds... so we aim to keep our souls pure about what we’re doing and maintain focus on our goal, to build and be a part of community wherever we go.
hello. this is Lenore. we met before, not so many times. I am the editor in a local magazine in chengdu. This issue we wanna interview the different kinds of foreigners who live in chengdu.So we wanna have an interview with you . also i could email the imformation of topic and our magazine to you later. Bless Lenore
i don't know why i can't send mail to you in myspace.