Baliset (band)

Last updated
Baliset
Origin Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Genres Experimental music
Hard rock
Heavy metal
Years active1996–present
LabelsRet Con Recordings
MembersGreg Massi
Adam Letourneau
Lauren Flaherty
Rob Macleod
Past membersDana Chisholm

Baliset is an American hard rock / heavy metal band based in Boston, Massachusetts, and is the project of Greg Massi, known for his work with the avant-garde bands maudlin of the Well and Kayo Dot.

Contents

Background

Greg Massi began developing solo material under the moniker "Baliset" in 1996. From 1999-2006, along with college friend, drummer Adam Letourneau, Massi would go on to write and record songs for the project. [1]

Massi left Kayo Dot in 2006, allowing him to concentrate his efforts on Baliset with Letourneau. They released a limited edition, 5-song demo called Black Light Moon later that year. [2]

A Time for Rust

In March 2009, Baliset's first album entitled A Time for Rust, was released digitally, and a few months later on CD, to generally favorable reviews. [3] The album contained 8 songs, all of which were written and recorded between 2003-8 by Massi and Letourneau, with the assistance of several guest musicians, including fellow Kayo Dot alumnus Forbes Graham. [4] The album artwork was provided by Eliran Kantor, known for his work for metal bands such as Testament and Aghora. The album was recorded and mixed at Zing Studios, with additional mastering and engineering at Menegroth The Thousand Caves studio by Colin Marston in Queens, NY. The album's release was followed by a few shows in the Boston area by the live incarnation of the band, and the band continues to play live occasionally.

In October 2009, it was announced that Lauren Flaherty, who performed guest vocals on A Time for Rust, joined Baliset as the official lead singer. [5]

Discography

Band members

Current members

Guest and session musicians

Previous members

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Negură Bunget</span> Romanian black metal band

Negură Bunget was a black metal band from Timișoara, Romania whose atmospheric sound incorporated elements of progressive metal and Romanian folk music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">In the Woods...</span> Norwegian metal band

In the Woods... is a Norwegian avant-garde metal/progressive black metal band from Kristiansand, formed in 1992. The band have released a total of six studio albums, three singles, one compilation album and one live album throughout its existence. The band disbanded in 2000 and reformed in 2014.

Toby Driver is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, producer, label owner, and artist, best known for his work as the leader of the experimental bands Kayo Dot and Maudlin of the Well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kayo Dot</span> American avant-garde metal band

Kayo Dot is an American avant-garde metal band. Formed in 2003 by Toby Driver after the break-up of Maudlin of the Well, they released their debut album Choirs of the Eye on John Zorn's Tzadik Records that same year. Since then, Kayo Dot's lineup has drastically changed over the years. Toby Driver is the only founding member of the band still remaining, save for frequent lyrical contributions from former motW member Jason Byron. Up until 2011, the lineup was constantly shifting, and Kayo Dot's sound consistently changed over the years, featuring a wide variety of instrumentation including guitar, drums, bass, violin, saxophone, vibraphone, synthesizers, clarinets and flutes. Underground metal audiences warmly received the group upon its early existence, with the 2003 album Choirs of the Eye and the 2006 album Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue both becoming underground hits in the progressive metal scene.

Maudlin of the Well is an avant-garde metal band from Boston, Massachusetts. Their music contains elements from many different genres including jazz, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, post rock, art rock, progressive metal, doom metal, death metal, and gothic metal, as well as chamber music, ambient music and electronic music. After a five-year hiatus, the band re-united to record their latest album, Part the Second, which was funded by fan donations and released online May 14, 2009 for free.

The Meads of Asphodel are an English black metal band with pronounced medieval, Arab, punk, and progressive metal influences from Hertfordshire, England.

Infernum is a Polish black metal band founded in 1992 in Wrocław by Grzegorz Jurgielewicz and Tom Balrog playing also in Oppressor and, at present, in Baphomet's Throne. Their debut, Taur-Nu-Fuin, was one of the earliest albums of National Socialist black metal.

Acheron was an American death/black metal band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that was formed by Vincent Crowley in 1988. The band is named after the mythological river Acheron located in the underground kingdom of Hades in ancient Greek mythology. They are not to be confused with 1990s Australian death metal band Acheron, nor the 1980s/1990s American power metal band Acheron, nor any of several lesser known European thrash and death metal bands with similar names between the 1980s and the present.

<i>Choirs of the Eye</i> 2003 studio album by Kayo Dot

Choirs of the Eye is the debut studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released on Tzadik Records in 2003. It was released shortly after the breakup of maudlin of the Well, with the band consisting of several members from the former band as well as guest performers who are friends of band members. The album is titled after a lyric from the maudlin of the Well song "Blight of River-Systems", on My Fruit Psychobells...A Seed Combustible. SputnikMusic voted it as one of the best metal albums of the 2000s. The group performed the entire album in 2010 to two sold out nights in Brooklyn, New York.

<i>Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue</i> 2006 studio album by Kayo Dot

Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue is the second studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released on Robotic Empire in 2006. The album received high praise from Pitchfork, Lambgoat, and Sputnikmusic, the last of whom named it the #2 album of 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winds of Plague</span> American deathcore band

Winds of Plague is an American deathcore band from Upland, California. Formed in 2002, the band is known for being the first of several deathcore bands to incorporate symphonic elements into their music.

<i>Bath</i> (album) 2001 studio album by maudlin of the Well

Bath is maudlin of the Well's second album. It was released alongside its companion album Leaving Your Body Map in 2001 on the Dark Symphonies record label, shortly before their break-up.

<i>Blue Lambency Downward</i> 2008 studio album by Kayo Dot

Blue Lambency Downward is the third studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released on Hydra Head Records in May 2008. After much of the group left to pursue outside projects, the only members who remained were frontman Toby Driver and violinist and long-time collaborator Mia Matsumiya. The two began recording the album in early 2007 using a revolving door of contributing musicians. The album is heavily influenced by chamber and orchestral music and jazz, and features an abundance of woodwinds. It is widely considered to be Kayo Dot's least heavy album to date.

<i>Leaving Your Body Map</i> 2001 studio album by maudlin of the Well

Leaving Your Body Map is maudlin of the Well's third album, and was released alongside its companion album Bath on the Dark Symphonies record label in 2001, shortly before their break-up.

<i>Coyote</i> (Kayo Dot album) 2010 studio album by Kayo Dot

Coyote is the fourth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released April 20, 2010 on Hydra Head Records. The album is a single narrative-driven, long-form composition in five movements. The story and text were provided by a close, terminally-ill friend of the band, Yuko Sueta, in the final stage of her life, while the music was written by Toby Driver in a so-called "goth fusion" style, combining elements of early Cure, Faith and the Muse, and Bauhaus with further influences from Herbie Hancock's psychedelic jazz album Sextant and Scott Walker's recent experimental album The Drift. Sueta's story and lyrics were constructed with deliberate melodrama as part of the intended gothic aesthetic, expressing the protagonist's loneliness and longing to be in a better place, and her journey through her own personal looking-glass through a hallucinatory world of fear and wonder.

Wuthering Heights is a Danish-Swedish heavy metal band with a somewhat eclectic musical style which falls in somewhere between progressive metal, "folk music-into-heavy metal" and power metal, along with "a mixture of Neoclassical Metal, Melodic Speed Metal and various progressive elements."

<i>Hubardo</i> 2013 studio album by Kayo Dot

Hubardo is the sixth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot. It is a concept double album self-released and funded through pre-orders on frontman Toby Driver's Ice Level Records in 2013. It is the follow-up to Gamma Knife, which was released in 2012. It is Kayo Dot's longest album and its first double album, and contains aspects of black metal, post-rock, jazz fusion, and chamber music. It was picked as the 4th best album of 2013 on indie music website SputnikMusic.

<i>The Who Hits 50!</i> (album) 2014 compilation album by the Who

The Who Hits 50! is a compilation of singles by the English rock band the Who, released in 2014 by Polydor Records. The two-disc set contains every single released by the band in the United Kingdom, with the exceptions of: "A Legal Matter" and "La-La-La-Lies" from 1966; and "Long Live Rock" and the remake of "I'm One" from 1979. At the same time it also contains every single by the band released in the United States throughout their career, with the exceptions of: "The Real Me" from 1974; the reissue of "Substitute" from 1976; and "Long Live Rock" from 1979. A condensed single-disc standard edition appeared as well, both versions in conjunction with the band's 50th anniversary and associated tour of the same name. The album is notable for containing singles generally not included on other compilation albums, such as the band's Rolling Stones cover "The Last Time" done as an act of solidarity while Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were facing jail time, along with other lesser-known singles "Dogs" and "Call Me Lightning".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Devilment</span> British metal band

Devilment are a British gothic metal band originally formed in late 2011 by guitarist Daniel Finch. The band experienced problems finding a stable vocalist until Dani Filth from the extreme metal band Cradle of Filth joined. They released their first studio album, The Great and Secret Show, in November 2014.

<i>Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike</i> 2021 studio album by Kayo Dot

Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike is the tenth studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot. It was released on October 29, 2021 via Prophecy Productions. It reached number 100 in the German Top 100 album charts for the first time during the week after its release, November 5, 2021. It is the first album since 2006's Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue to feature founding member Greg Massi.

References

  1. "Baliset official biography". Archived from the original on 2010-03-05. Retrieved 2009-11-12.
  2. Black Light Moon at the Metal Archives.
  3. "A Time for Rust reviews". Archived from the original on 2010-03-07. Retrieved 2009-11-12.
  4. A Time For Rust release info.
  5. "Flaherty officially joins Baliset". Archived from the original on 2010-03-05. Retrieved 2009-11-12.