Composed music is just someone elses improvisation...
Insipiration:
CJ Borosque, Merzbow, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Diamanda Galas, Tom Waits, Eddie Moore, Lisle Ellis, Tom Nunn, Thollem Mcdonas, , sirens & screams 6th & Market San Francisco, Randy Yau, Vortacella, strong winds off a cliff
Bretheren in Tone:
Albert Ayler, Arthur Blythe, Thomas Chapin, Eric Dolphy, Chico Freeman, Stand Getz, Oliver Lake, Booker Little, Jim Pepper, Glenn Spearman, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, John Tchicai
Styles:
No holds barred music that cuts away the ropes of control and systems.
RENT ROMUS is a force spanning over twenty years of original improvised music, D.I.Y. music production, performance, and curation. He is heavily involved in stretching past the confines of standard music forms performing his original compositions in a wide variety of experimental musical settings as well as presenting and supporting the local artist community at large with his grass-root philanthropic vision for total artistic self expression and freedom from generic branding.
From his very beginnings as a student of Jazz, studying under the tutelage of Stan Getz, Bruce Foreman, Dizzy Gillespie, and drummer Eddie Moore he found himself drawn to the outer realms of music. In 1986 at the age of 18 he founded the progressive jazz sextet Jazz On the Line, as a vehicle for his original compositions. They produced several projects, including In the Moment with Chico Freeman in 1992. In 1997 Romus had the honor of recording with tenor sax master John Tchicai. Tchicai is best known for his work with the NY Art Quartet, NY Ear and Eye Control, and his recordings with John Coltrane and Albert Ayler.
In 2001 Romus re-opened his avant, free music label Edgetone Records where he released three CDs; Avatar In the Field, PKD Vortex, and Guinea Pig Live at the Hotel Utah that reflected his love for interweaving science fiction, horror literature, improvisation, Finno-Ugric traditions, socio-political themes, and the inspiration of Albert Ayler in his music. In 2003 he along side Ernesto Diaz-Infante founded The Abstractions, who released three recordings during their time together.
Since then then Romus' ongoing free improvisational/experimental projects have included the Bloom Project with pianist Thollem Mcdonas and drummer Jon Brumit where they have released two CDs and toured through out the US Midwest.
The Lords of Outland in the meantime have mutated through many incarnations and released Culture of Pain in 2006 and most recently in 2008; You can sleep when you’re dead! The core group consists of drummer Philip Everett, bassist Ray Schaeffer, and noise pedal artist C.J Borosque.
As a producer and artist business activist Rent Romus founded Edgetone Records a new music label since 1991. In his early days as a concert producer he was the Executive Director of Jazz in Flight in the late 90’s as well as the Director of Promotion for the SFAlt Festival 2002-2004. Starting in 2000 he founded Outsound.org under which he is the Executive Director and lead curator of The SIMM Music Series at the Studio 6 Musicians Union Hall, and the famous Luggage Store Gallery New Music Series in San Francisco. In 2002 he founded The Edgetone New Music Summit, a national experimental music festival held in the greater San Francisco Bay Area every summer.
BANDS
Lords of Outland
The Lords of Outland are a loose collective rotating ensemble for the sonic escapades of saxophonist, producer Rent Romus.
The Lords of Outland began in 1993 after a bloodless coup by members a band he ran for ten years known as Jazz On the Line. The Lords released it's first album You'll Never Be The Same for New York based Jazzheads Records in 1995. Still beholden to the vapid decrepid ideals of the standard-jazz-mindset, Rent entered a group video to the then micro-fledgling BET Channel's National Network Show, "Jazz Central" as part of the Jazz Discovery program. As Rent watched the jazz judges sit and stare at the camera as they tried to say something "nice" about the Lords' version of Eric Dolphy's 'Out to Lunch' submitted alongside the smooth and silky Pat Matheny he knew he was meant to bludgeon the status quo.
Since then the Lords' roster has changed numerous times, releasing five albums with each incarnation more terrible then the last, wreaking havoc on the ears of unsuspecting victims chasing away the once plump jazz fans of days past.
As the years sloshed ahead through a decade sonic conservatism Rent discovered he and the Lords had fallen into a realm known to some as "Black Metal FreeJazz". This odd sub-genre seems to have metamorphosed from the need of a new generation to navigate it's urge to play band instruments and still mosh in a complete abandon. This incubation and virulent growth of such a community has spurred Rent's most recent releases with the Lords named aptly Culture of Pain and You can sleep when you're dead! featuring his current line-up of the most sonically disturbed of sound artists CJ Borosque, Philip Everett, and Ray Scheaffer
'Bloom', a spirited and colossal collaboration between pianist Thollem Mcdonas, multi-saxophonist and electronician Rent Romus, instrument builder Steven Baker, and drummer and found-object player Jon Brumit. The CD features free group improvisations as well as interpretations of numerous textual and graphical scores offered up by Mcdonas and Brumit. The entire album is an organic construction and expression of solos, duos, and trios combining disparate and divergent stylistic histories with a sense of refreshing immediacy, intensity, and spontaneous inventiveness.
QUOTES
"...his (mostly) gentle phrasing underlining a potential, yet still non-existent rebellion while transmuting the predominant tides into deformed film-noirish soundtracks, with rain pouring down on the trash amassed in dark alleys."
Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes, Rome, Italy
"Rent remains a force for me, his restraint as powerful as his melodic attacks."
Thurston Hunger, KFJC 89.7 FM Los Altos, CA
“Swings like death and hell.”
Jack Lind, Det Fri Aktuelt, Copenhagen, Denmark
“...a ferocious improviser.”
San Francisco Weekly
“...dynamic, and monstrous.”
Sam Prestianni, Oakland Montclarion
“Overall, Romus' performance was raw and full of musical vigor, which inspired a higher order and left the audience with a smitten effect.
Thorbjorn Sjogren, Politiken, Denmark
“Romus has been central to the creative music world of the West Coast for a number of years, and he keeps stretching the boundries of originality with each new release.”
Frank Rubolino - onefinalnote.com/Cadence
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"Who is the man, that'll risk his rent for his brother man?! RENT!! That Rent Romus is a bad mother - Shut your mouth!! I'm just talkin' 'bout Rent..."
"Avatar In The Field"
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"Stamen"
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