your greedbagpress release - fahrenheit_drafts
BLK w/BEAR bio [black with bear]
signal to noise ratio . concurrent transgressions and turntable deconstructions . recordings of failed communication and decomposed transmission . archival reconstructionism
following earlier loop and turntablism experiments during the 1970's and 80's with Louisville KY musical improvisation group STUTTER, now under his sound art pseudonym, BLK w/ BEAR, Washington DC-based artisan JS (Jim) Adams has created both temporal turntable installations and laptop compositions utilizing forced looping technique of altered vinyl recordings along with 'dead media' recording sources such as Mutoscope 'Voice-o-Graph' and Wilcox Gay 'Recordio' discs.
Trace Recordings, the independent label formed by Mark Beazley of Rothko, is pleased to announce the release of 'fahrenheit_drafts' a new 12-inch single by Washington DC sound and visual artisan JS Adams, aka BLK w/BEAR.
Trace Recordings' first release was 2003's Rothko . BLK w/BEAR critically acclaimed 'wish for a world without hurt' collaborative disc, the pair's creative response to the events and aftermath of September 11, 2001.
'fahrenheit_drafts' finds the static and hiss of antiquated dead media‚ and vinyl surface noise found within Adams' palette featured on 'wish for a world without hurt' now translated as the slow burn and crackle of combustion. Caustic and ambient drones are augmented by the cello work of Doug Poplin and voice synthesis effects from Joseph Dress.
Three of the single's four tracks were created for use during the annual Queering Sound electronic music and spoken word event, curated by Adams for the Triangle Artists Group [metro DC's queer arts collective]. The fourth composition [burn_the thirteenth fire] was created exclusively for this release and was mixed and edited by Mark Beazley.
BLK w/BEAR's sonic manipulations mine a similar vein to the turntable experiments of Philip Jeck or Saule [Belgian composer Xavier Garcia Bardon]. Pop Culture deconstructions and decayed radio broadcast that echo a looping minimalism often flavoured with the aching melancholia of artists such as Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Charles Hayward or William Basinski [Disintegration Loops]. Engaging. Mesmerizing. trance-like and somber meditations. Cultural immolation for the next age.
release:fahrenheit_drafts
label: Trace Recordings