Fol Chen | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Origin | Los Angeles, California, United States |
Genres | Electronic, experimental |
Years active | 2009-present |
Labels | Asthmatic Kitty Records |
Members | Adam Samuel Goldman (credited as Samuel Bing) The Booksman Garrett Henritz Sinosa Loa Patrik-Ian Polk |
Website | cargocollective |
Fol Chen is an American electronic band from Los Angeles, California, [1] formed in 2009. [2] The band is signed to Asthmatic Kitty Records and has released three full-length albums. [2]
The band "maintained utmost secrecy from the start", [3] working under aliases and disguising their faces during recorded shows, including KCRW radio's Morning Becomes Eclectic program [4] and the 2009 South by Southwest festival. [5]
The cover art for their first album, Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made , release in 2009, features silhouettes, and music videos replace band members with actors and animation, such as the video of the song "No Wedding Cake" where band members appear as animals.
In 2010, the band released Part II: The New December, described by the Los Angeles Times as "screwball pastiche pop [that] sounds like an algebra problem but feels like a come-on." [6] Sinosa Loa joined the group at this time as keyboardist and vocalist, although the band favored group vocals and shared lead duties among most members. They toured throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe with other American bands, including Liars, !!!, and The Apples in Stereo.
The band's third album was released March 19, 2013, on the Asthmatic Kitty label. [7] The music is in a style the band calls "Opera-House", which they describe as "beat-driven electronica with grand, operatic gestures and lyrically-dense storytelling." [8] In a departure from their previous use of multiple lead singers, Loa performs all ten tracks. [9]
During a month-long residency at The Echo nightclub in Los Angeles, the band featured different shows each night – one show invited guest singers found via Craigslist to perform with the band as a sort of live karaoke; [10] another night saw metal band Viscera playing exclusively Fol Chen covers. [11]
In November 2010, Goldman and Loa traveled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to perform two long-form, constructivist-inspired reworkings of the two studio albums, followed by a workshop and recording session where they invited local musicians (and curious non-musicians) to join them in building a new Fol Chen song. [12]
On July 28, 2011, Goldman and Loa held a workshop at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to introduce the Fol Chen Verbal Algorithm Composer-Free Song Generator, produced with the Los Angeles–based arts organization Machine Project. The project allowed museum visitors to record their experience with a piece of art and have it converted into a song that they could take home. [13]
The band collaborated with Monome, a computer-manufacturing company, in late 2011 to make the Tetrafol, a motion-sensitive pyramidal sound device.[ clarification needed ] The Tetrafol came pre-loaded with Fol Chen samples but allowed users to apply their own sounds. The band released two singles made with the device and sold a limited run of 100 units. [14]
Sufjan Stevens is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released nine solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Grammy and Academy Award nominations.
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Illinois is a 2005 concept album by American singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens. His fifth studio album, it features songs referencing places, events, and persons related to the U.S. state of Illinois. Illinois is Stevens' second based on a U.S. state—part of a planned series of fifty that began with the 2003 album Michigan and that Stevens has since acknowledged was a joke.
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Part I: John Shade, Your Fortune's Made is the first studio album by the Los Angeles band Fol Chen. It was released on Asthmatic Kitty Records in February 2009.
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Adam Samuel Goldman is a Los Angeles–based composer, music producer, and artist. He is best known as songwriter and producer for the art-pop band Fol Chen, which released three albums on Sufjan Stevens's Asthmatic Kitty label from 2009 to 2013 and was noted for its "instantly unique blend of dread and whimsy." He was songwriter and singer for chamber pop band Bedroom Walls and touring guitarist for Liars on their 2008 tour opening for Radiohead. Goldman has produced albums for Andrew Bird and Simone White, remixed songs by Junior Vasquez and David Bowie, and covered Prince for Spin magazine. He is composer for the CBS primetime drama The Code.
Zane Marie Reynosa, known by the stage names Zane and Zane One as well as the names Zane Valdez and Zane Marie, is an American rapper and fashion accessory designer from Whittier, California. She joined the pioneering Christian underground hip hop collective Tunnel Rats in 1993, which was formed by her brother, Dax Reynosa, and recorded three studio albums and a compilation with the group. She also founded the band Saturday Night Freestyle. She has featured on numerous songs and in 2008 released a solo studio album, L.A. Woman. She was active for years as a battle rapper in the Los Angeles scene and was featured in the 2004 documentary The Battle for L.A.: Footsoldiers, Vol. 1, directed by Darren Doane. She also created a fashion line, Zane Marie Bags, specializing in vintage handbags, luggage, wallets, and rhyme books.