10/03/2012

NEW NON - Back to Mono (Boyd Rice)

BACK TO MONO

OUT NOVEMBER 6th, 2012
 
 
 
Boyd Rice / NON is set to release their new album, Back To Mono on November 6th 2012. Back To Mono, a return to Boyd Rice’s noise roots, is first new album since 2002’s Children Of The Black Sun.
 
Back To Mono is a collection of brand new recordings - produced with Wes Eisold (Cold Cave), NY producer Bryin Dall (Thee Majesty / Hirsute Pursuit) and long time collaborator Z’ev – along with unreleased studio and live recordings from the late 70s. Rounding out the album is a cover of The Normal’s ‘Warm Leatherette’; Mute’s first release, described by Rice as “the best electronic pop song – bar none.” Not only will Rice dub it a great song, but of great significance to him and his career, he continues: “I bought that single fifteen minutes before meeting Daniel [Miller]. And that meeting changed my life.”
 
When initially released, tracks such as 1978’s ‘Watusi’(here re-recorded by Wes Eisold) and ‘Scream’ (recorded live in 1979 at LA’s Whiskey A Go-Go) had significant impact, as the genre of noise-rock was still relatively unchartered territory. Today these tracks have a recognized home and genre-mates, but have not lost their significance and substance.
 
“I was doing sample-based music about a decade before the advent of samplers, when everyone else was using bass, guitars, keyboards and drums.  It has been said that I invented the first sampler.  Perhaps I did. At the time I called it the N.M.U. (or noise manipulation unit). It allowed me to essentially sample numerous tracks of noise and mould them into rudimentary rhythms.  This was my principle instrument for a good many years and can be heard in the late 70’s archival recordings on Back to Mono,” explains Rice.
 
As innovation and forward thinking were element to the creative process in the early recordings, they were just as crucial in the recording of the newer tracks.  Turn Me On, Dead Man and Turn Me On, Dead Man (Reprise) called upon the talents of Z’ev, a “long time partner-in-crime”. A musician, artist, poet, and dancer, who has previously collaborated with the likes of Merzbow and Psychic TV amongst others, Z’ev lent concepts and ideas from outside of the strictly musical.
 
Cold Cave’s Wes Eisold was also called in to lend a fresh, outsiders point of view, lending his talents as producer and recording the title track at his band’s Philadelphia studio.
 
Boyd Rice / NON’s first release was the Black Album (1975) and was at the forefront of the birth of the industrial noise genre. “When I started to compose and perform noise music in the ‘70s there simply were no other noise groups.” As noise became more commonplace, Rice pushed beyond gritty recordings and embraced more subtle and complex textures.  Enter Back to Mono; the modern and discerning conceptualization of his noise roots.
In Rice’s words, “Back to Mono was my attempt to demonstrate that the genre I created still had room to grow; that it could still be re-imagined.”
 
BACK TO MONO TRACKLISTING
Turn Me On, Dead Man
Watusi
Back To Mono
Seven Sermons To The Dead
Obey Your Signal Only
Man Cannot Flatter Fate
Scream
Back To Mono (Live)
Turn Me On, Dead Man (Reprise)
Fire Shall Come
Warm Leatherette
 
Boyd Rice / NON : Website | Facebook
 

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