BRYAN ZIMMERMAN (VOCALS, SAMPLERS, MUSICAL SAW)
LAURA ORTMAN, white mountain apache (VIOLIN, ELECTRIC GUITAR, ORGAN, VOCALS, SAMPLERS, PIANO)
KEN SWITZER (VOCALS, MAGNUS CHORD ORGAN)
..
Influences
Flatbush avenue (brooklyn), late nites with Roy Orbison, Swamp Dogg, Mission of Burma, Daniel Johnston, Neil Young, Pixies, GBV, Pink Floyd & Syd Barrett, the Psychic Paramount, The Double, Elk City, Suicidal Tendencies, Animal Collective, Motley Crue, The Shangri-Las, Sebadoh, Black Sabbath, Flaming Lips, Velvet Underground, Palace, Harry Smith Anthology, Rolling Stones, Kronos Quartet, Dinosaur Jr., Blonde Redhead, Calexico, Fugazi, The Beatles, Jason Loewenstein, The Kinks, Franco, Sun City Girls and Sublime Frequencies, The Ronettes, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Cambodian Rocks, Dvorak, Billie Holiday, Sabers, AC/DC, Sven Hogan, Tom Petty, Butthole Surfers, Sun Ra, Thin Lizzy, J.S. Bach, MF Doom, The Shaggs, Thomas Mapfumo, Cocteau Twins, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bad Brains, "Goodbye Babylon" box, Lefty Frizzel, Roxy Music, Robert Johnson, Robert Zimmerman, Keiji Haino, Devotchka, Sibelius, Stars Like Fleas, The Fenders and Wingate Valley Boys and other Indian Country, Apache Crown Dancers, Ritchie Valens, Hasil Adkins, Bessie Smith, Loretta Lynn, sirens, traffic, wilderness areas, campgrounds, tallgrass prairie, birds, insects
Introducing "Claws of Light," featuring Jason Loewenstein! - Out now on Own Records, above VIDEO by Jean Francois Le Crenier
Weird, warm, and enigmatic, the Dust Dive returns from another long field trip with Claws of Light, the captivating follow-up to their critically acclaimed debut, Asleep or Awake Walk. “Like modern Huck Finn tales where the Dionysian clashes with the suburban” (in the words of D. Shawn Bosler of The Village Voice), the Brooklyn-based trio’s new covey of songs soars with gritty equanimity and uncommonly vivid verse, evoking an urban-pastoral world that is mutually arcadian and trashy, dreamy and deadpan, magical and everyday. Claws of Light also maps a wild and curiously deranged sonic landscape, spanning from punk to classical, pre-war American folk to psych, gypsy violin to naturalist field recordings, and classic rock to outsider Americana. When asked to describe their sound, Dust Dive organist Ken Switzer, who spent much of his youth in the backwoods of rural western Massachusetts, offers up the label “experimental campfire music.”
Dust Dive multi-instrumentalist Laura Ortman (an accomplished film-soundtrack composer, session violinist and member of the White Mountain Apache tribe) describes Claws as “party songs without the party music.” The method of recording this album surely fueled the party. In an effort to preserve their relaxed homegrown ambience, the Dust Dive asked Sebadoh and Fiery Furnaces member and veteran guerilla engineer Jason Loewenstein to record the songs at the band’s namesake fort*—a cozy half-railroad apartment located on Flatbush Avenue. (Chief vocalist/lyricist and Kansas native Bryan Zimmerman calls Brooklyn’s strange and colorful thoroughfare “our river.”) Throughout last autumn and winter, Loewenstein dove in and spent weekends recording Claws within a labyrinth of acoustic forts rigged from scrapwood and blankets. Air-drumming during playbacks eventually compelled him to pick up his sticks and crown the record with drums on the leadoff “Babyface in a Pickup Truck,” as well as “Rope Swing 2000” and “Green River.”
*As an added bonus, Claws of Light also features one track immaculately recorded and mixed by Patrick McCarthy (Latitude/Longitude, Enochane) at the cozy Seaside Lounge, which also ultimately served as the mix-to-tape clubhouse for Claws.
Some good words about The Dust Dive:
"To call The Dust Dive a 'band' would be doing them a disservice. The profound depth of imagery in their lyrics and soundscapes is highly evolved and uncompromising. The sonic picture that is painted for the listener is the opportunity to be transported to another place entirely, and is nothing less than high art. Their music fulfills the deepest promise and intention of a musician to their audience.
They also party harder than Motley Crue." JASON LOEWENSTEIN, Sebadoh, Fiery Furnaces, "Claws of Light" recording and mixing engineer, drummer, and acoustic blanket-fort architect [from an interview with Native American Indigenous Cinema and Arts magazine (NAICA)]
"The world's most stoic band, and one of my favorites." CASEY BLOCK (East Village Radio, Eat Records, Hell's Hills)
“… it’s probably artists like The Dust Dive that are the true soul of American folk music . . . purest lo-fi Americana . . . like Sparklehorse on a very cloudy day . . . Congratulations to Own Records for releasing such a treasure chest of melancholic gems.” - Disagreement.net (Luxembourg) [for "Claws of Light"]
" ... Now we are onto something special. 'Claws Of Light' is a time warp, a transporational vehicle . . . The Dust Dive spins Americana on its rustic ear." - KEN MICALLEF, Better Living Through MP3, author of "Classic Rock Drummers" [for "Claws of Light]
The Dust Dive's Bryan Zimmerman was born and raised in Olathe, Kansas, and along with chief instrumentalist Laura Ortman and co-vocalist/organist Ken Switzer, has made (murmuring below the more exaggerated/idealized works of new-folk indie-heroes like Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Devendra Banhart) one of the year's most fragile and personal indie-folk records: a warm, evocative and poetically exhaustive emotional catalog of people-places-and-stings, rooted deeply in a geography that adulthood, and perhaps the subtlest shift in ideology, has irretrievably distanced." STYLUS MAGAZINE (William S. Fields) [for "Asleep or Awake Walk"]
“Indeed, if the mere mention of "The Straight Story," the infamous David Lynch movie, causes a warm nostalgia, 'Claws Of Light' may well be one of the most enjoyable albums of this year.” - GONCALO SITIMA, Hiddentrack.net (Portugal)
[Google translation, for "Claws of Light"]
“It has nothing to do with anyone and everything to do with everyone.” - PATRICK MCCARTHY, Latitude/Longitude, Enochane, "Claws of Light" assistant mixing engineer and head engineer on the song 'Postcards of Real Worlds'
"... a deftly manipulated Americana, complete with mythological twang." THE VILLAGE VOICE (Alexander Provan) [for "Asleep or Awake Walk"]
DISCOGRAPHY:
THE DUST DIVE "Claws of Light" (2007, Own Records)
THE DUST DIVE FLASH "Tens of Thousands" (Laura Ortman solo, 2006, free103point9 audio dispatch)
THE DUST DIVE "Asleep or Awake Walk" (2005, Own Records; 2004, free103point9 audio dispatch 22)
"RADIO ACTION II" compilation (features an early version of "Postcards of Real Worlds" (2004, free103point9 audio dispatch 20)
Thanks for the add! As a special thank you for our newest fans and friends, we’d like to send you a free MP3 album of ours. Just send me your email address and let me know which album you’d like. Thanks.
How are you? I just got the T-shirts I ordered for the NYC Musical Saw Festival. I'm excited about the logo: What do you think? I hope you can join us at the festival on Saturday, July 18th, 2pm at Trinity Church, 31-18 37th street, Astoria (Queens).
I would like to share some exciting news: after a long application process, the NYC Musical Saw Festival was
approved by the Guinness Book of Records to attempt to break the current world record for the 'Largest Musical Saw
Ensemble'. The current world record (set in Poland last year) is 27 musical saw players playing together. Could we set a new world record on July 18th? We need your help for it! Please join us and be part of a Guinness World Record breaking attempt at the 7th annual NYC Musical Saw Festival: When: Saturday, July 18th, 2pm Where: Trinity Church, 37th street corner of 31st Avenue, Astoria (Queens), NYC. Admission: $10 Info: www.MusicalSawFestival.org
For the Guinness World Record attempt all sawists will be playing 2 pieces together (in what we call the 'Chorus of
the Saws'): Ave Maria/Schubert - accompanied by church organ Over the Rainbow - accompanied by piano The 'Chorus of the Saws' will be conducted by Scott Munson.
Hope to see you there, and please - pass the info on - we need to get as many musical saw players to participate as
Hi New-Yorkers! Just a quick word, in case anyone here is curious of the French pop-folk scene, to tell you that I will play at Sidewalk Café (94 av. A, Manhattan) next tuesday at 11 pm. xxx Isabelle
Online Now!
......
..
