The Squid's Ear Magazine


TOTEM>: Solar Forge (ESP-Disk)

Excellent improvisational interaction from rapid scrabbly to lowercase exchange from guitarist Bruce Einsenbeil, bassist Tom Blancarte and drummer Andrew Drury.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Bruce Eisenbeil-guitar

Tom Blancarte-bass

Andrew Drury-drums


Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.




UPC: 825481040464

Label: ESP-Disk
Catalog ID: ESPDISK 4046CD
Squidco Product Code: 9778

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2008
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded on August 5, 2007 at Wombat Studio, Brooklyn, NY.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"TOTEM> is a benchmark in the world of experimental sound and contemporary improvisation. TOTEM> is a noise rock/free improvisation trio that ventures from walls of sound to exploring microscopic sound worlds. With guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil, bassist Tom Blancate and drummer Andrew Drury this trio makes music that is fresh, uncategorizable, and at the frontiers of understanding. TOTEM> has been influenced by adverse circumstances, extremes, paradoxes and technology - both primitive and futuristic."-ESP


Artist Biographies

"For over a decade, Texan bassist Tom Blancarte has been contributing a vivid pallet of dark frequencies to New York's creative music scene, both as a freelance performer as well as a member of bands such as the electro-acoustic jazz ensemble the Peter Evans Septet, the banjo-shred power trio Seabrook Power Plant, New Timbralist free jazz noise trio Totem, an eerie post-apocalyptic duo with wife Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen (The Home of Easy Credit), improv doom tuba trio The Gate and Danish post-punk improv quartet Sweet Banditry.

A native of the Texas Hill Country in Austin, Texas, his formative years included a steady diet of fantasy and sci-fi novels, comic books and video games, and later on a total immersion in death and black metal. Accordingly, Blancarte has cultivated a demented and visceral instrumental practice that transcends the experimental bass canon and pushes improvisatory art to new extremes. He has toured extensively throughout Europe and North America, playing venues that range from dingy squatted basements to international festivals.

Recently, he has begun to perform improvised solos on the bass as an exciting new area of exploration, started reacquainting himself with the euphonium (his first instrument), as well as starting the Denmark-based record label Marsken Records. He is on the faculty at the Music and Theater Folk School in Toftlund, Denmark. He lives in Toftlund with his wife and daughter."

-Marsken Records (https://www.marsken.com/about-tom/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Andrew Drury grew up near Seattle (USA) and works primarily in avant-jazz and free improvisation, with regular forays into other genres and media. He has performed in Europe and North America, made five CDs as a bandleader, and appeared on over 20 others. He is an acclaimed leader of percussion workshops.

Drury began drumming in the sixth grade band at his school on Bainbridge Island, Washington. After spending a summer digging a basement under his parents' house with a shovel and pick he bought a drum set and began taking lessons from Seattle drummer Dave Coleman, Sr. He later studied with Ed Blackwell, Bill Lowe, Bill Barron, and the writer Annie Dillard at Wesleyan University. He is a self-taught composer.

Drury performs as a soloist, collaborates with adventurous musicians from around the world, and leads several groups that play his compositions. In addition to groups that he leads and frequent encounters with improvisers from various parts of the world he plays regularly with Jason Kao Hwang, Jessica Lurie, Reuben Radding, the Rat Race Choir, the Steve Swell Trio, TOTEM>, Nate Wooley, Jack Wright, and others.

Since 2002 much of Drury's music has been characterized by an exploration of new materials and techniques, and by the use of texture as a central organizing element. He frequently performs using one drum, scraping the head with wood slivers and fingernails, manipulating drum head tension and harmonic patterns with bells, using the drum as an acoustic filter and amplifier for vibrations produced on other objects, and using the drum as a wind instrument.

Drury's wide ranging interests lead him periodically to explore other media and formats. Inspired by the work and writings of visual artist Robert Smithson, Drury performed and photographed over 20 Earth Solos-site specific drum set solos in desert, mountain, prairie, and industrial settings throughout the western US. He co-created a street theater piece that he performed in streets and political rallies in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico in 1993. In his work with choreographers (Love of the New Gun, Self-Obliteration Companion, etc.) he has created collages of field recordings and percussion samples, with occasional live mixing, percussion, or prepared piano. His music for dance has been presented at DTW, Joyce Soho, NW New Works Festival, and five cities in Romania.

Drury has led nearly 1,000 percussion workshops and trainings for music teachers and since 1989. Participants have included people of all ages, backgrounds, and physical abilities in rural and urban areas in schools, prisons, museums, Indian reservations, festivals, villages in Nicaragua and Guatemala, as well as the graduate school of the Columbia University School of Social Work. In 2005 he drummed with homeless people and battered women in ten shelters in Indiana. Following a six-month "Millennium Project" residency with the Oneida Nation in 2000 the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation identified him as "one of the most skilled and experienced community artists in America."

Drury has received 18 grants for his work from the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, the Seattle Arts Commission, the Artist Trust, the Puffin Foundation, and others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York (USA)."

-Andrew Drury Website (http://www.andrewdrury.com/bio.htm)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Blooming Ore 15:35

2. Austenized 13:32

3. Hephaestus' Wrath 13:49

4. Annealed 9:55

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
NY Downtown & Jazz/Improv
Free Improvisation
Trio Recordings
ESP

Search for other titles on the label:
ESP-Disk.


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The Squid's Ear Magazine

The Squid's Ear Magazine

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