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Kumo is a British musician and composer, the pseudonym of Jono Podmore who was born in 1965.
Kumo came into existence in 1994 when composer, producer, engineer and arranger Jono Podmore began work at Watershed Studios, London and with Plink Plonk records, founding two sister labels to Plink Plonk: Autoi and Psychomat. He began to play the theremin, developing new techniques for live performance of electronic music.
After a string of singles, remixes, live dates and international DJ commitments as Kumo, March 1997 saw the release of his first album Kaminari to significant critical acclaim. [1]
Also in 1997, Kumo moved temporarily to France to work with Irmin Schmidt (of Can) on Schmidt's opera Gormenghast , which premiered in 1998 and was re-staged in 2004. [2] A selection from the opera recorded and mixed by Jono was released on Spoon/Mute records in 2000. [3]
October 2000 saw the release of the second Kumo album 1+1=1 on Spoon Records. [4]
In 2001, after extensive touring including the Sonar festival, the London Jazz Festival and the Can Solo Projects tour, the first Irmin Schmidt and Kumo album Masters of Confusion [5] was released worldwide. Later the same year, they created the sound installation Flies, Guys and Choirs for the Barbican Centre as part of the Elektronik festival. The installation is now available as a sonic experience for public spaces. The duo continued to perform and give workshops together across Europe and work on film and TV music together including award-winning German TV series and dramas.
The fout-track EP Kumo and Friends was released on Electric Tones Records in early 2003 and a successful collaboration with B.J. Cole was released on the album Trouble in Paradise.
In 2004, Jono was appointed Professor of the Practice of Popular Music [6] at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (Cologne Conservatory of Music and Dance), Germany. He created and leads the MMus Production post-graduate course and installed a professional recording studio.
After further live appearances together, work began on a second Irmin Schmidt and Kumo album and the duo also made remixes (including P.I.L), performed live, held workshops in Germany and Portugal, and produced the album dot i/o for Mito Ichikawa.
The second Irmin Schmidt and Kumo album, Axolotl Eyes, was released in Spring 2008 on Spoon/Mute/Warners and was set for release in Japan on P-Vine Autumn 2008. The seven-track album comes with a bonus DVD containing the complete sound installation Flies, Guys and Choirs in 5.1, accompanied by a two-hour film co-directed by Jono. The DVD was screened at the Sonar Festival, Barcelona; Les Chants Mechaniques festival, Lille; and for the entire Short Circuit Festival [7] at The Roundhouse, London in May 2011.
In 2007, a four-track Kumo EP entitled Metapolis was released digitally on iTunes by White Label Records. [8]
In late 2009, Kumo founded a new and ongoing analogue electronic music collective Metamono. With critically praised analogue-only releases and live events under their belt, the first vinyl release, Tape EP, [9] was released on 23 January 2012. This was followed by a series of EPs, two albums With the Compliments of Nuclear Physics and Creative Listening, and a collection of music for silent film Secrets of Nature. [10]
The Cyclopean EP with Jaki Liebezeit, Irmin Schmidt and Burnt Friedman was recorded in 2012, mixed by Jono and released on Mute/Spoon records in 2013. [11]
Live performances, DJ sets and workshops as Kumo continued with shows in Japan, Macedonia, Kosovo, Los Angeles and UK including the Ministry of Sound, Avant-Garde Festival Schiphorst, London Analogue Festival and The Royal Festival Hall (with Metamono and The Orb).
Psychomat Records was restarted in 2017 with the release of Ms Slipper/Lewes 7” single with Swantje Lichtenstein.
Jono contributed the track Freude to New Clockwork Music, a compilation album for Electronic Sound magazine, inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange. [12]
Other work as Kumo in 2018/19 included the release and subsequent sell-out of 60-minute piece Day/Night on renowned cassette label Tapeworm; live improvised performance Chamber Remix at Rhenania, Cologne, derived from data generated by the movements of the bowing arms of the Kelemen Quartett playing Bartók‘s 5th String Quartet; and a live performance at the Crystal Palace Festival of a specially commissioned extended version of Joy Division‘s Transmission. [13]
The cassette Hallraum with Swantje Lichtenstein was released on Tapeworm [14] in 2020 to critical acclaim:
“Cool …a weirdly composed feel and brim with events both dreamy and unexpected.” (The Wire Feb 2020) [15]
During the Covid lockdowns Jono’s regular livestream on Crystal Palace Lockdown Live [16] attracted many thousands of views and a Kumo EP Euclidean Patterns, released on Sound-Space records (Aug 2020), was created entirely under lockdown conditions.
The success of the EP led to an album for Sound-Space: Slave Dances (Seven Portraits), the first Kumo album since 2000, released in August 2021. The album is accompanied by a 52-page zine with text by Jono, art by Joyce Treasure and design by Dan Taylor.
A three-track Kumo EP Three Tigers was released in early 2022 to mark the Chinese Year of the Tiger to critical acclaim:
“With Three Tigers, Podmore has once again shown himself to be a masterful arranger of conceptual, deep-thinking electronic music.” (Mat Smith) [17]
Later the same year, two further digital releases (Rubicon and Alea Iacta Est) appeared on Bandcamp supported by live performances including Iklektic and Cafe Oto, London.
In 1988, Podmore composed the soundtrack for TV film Stanley's Vision, [18] by Rosemary Shepherd. [19] The film stars Ben Kingsley as painter Stanley Spencer. Podmore is currently working on the soundtrack for, and co-producing, The Giaour [20] by Rika Ohara, [21] executive-produced by Gareth Jones. [22]
Can were a German experimental rock band formed in Cologne in 1968 by Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt (keyboards), Michael Karoli (guitar), and Jaki Liebezeit (drums). They featured several vocalists, including the American Malcolm Mooney (1968–70) and the Japanese Damo Suzuki (1970–73). They have been hailed as pioneers of the German krautrock scene.
Irmin Schmidt is a German keyboardist and composer, best known as a founding member of the band Can.
Jaki Liebezeit was a German drummer, best known as a founding member of experimental rock band Can. He was called "one of the few drummers to convincingly meld the funky and the cerebral".
Tago Mago is the second studio album by the German krautrock band Can, originally released as a double LP in August 1971 on United Artists Records. It was the band's first full studio album to feature vocalist Damo Suzuki after the departure of Malcolm Mooney the year prior, though Suzuki had been featured on most tracks on the 1970 compilation album Soundtracks. Recorded at Schloss Nörvenich, a medieval castle near Cologne, the album features long-form experimental tracks blending rock and jazz improvisation, funk rhythms, and musique concrète tape editing techniques.
Ege Bamyası is the third studio album by German krautrock band Can, released on 29 November 1972 by United Artists Records. The album contains the single "Spoon", which charted in the Top 10 in Germany after being used as the theme song to the German television mini-series Das Messer. The success of the single allowed Can to establish their own studio, Inner Space, in Weilerswist, North Rhine-Westphalia, where they recorded the rest of the album.
Disillusion is a German progressive metal band from Leipzig.
Soon Over Babaluma is the fifth studio album by the rock music group Can. This is the band's first album following the departure of Damo Suzuki in 1973. The vocals are provided by guitarist Michael Karoli and keyboardist Irmin Schmidt. It is also their last album that was created using a two-track tape recorder.
Out of Reach is the ninth studio album by the German krautrock band Can, released as an LP in 1978 on Harvest Records. It is their tenth official studio album, discounting compilations such as Unlimited Edition.
Manfred Schoof is a German jazz trumpeter.
This is a discography of the krautrock band Can.
Spoon Records is an independent record label managed by Hildegard Schmidt, wife of keyboard player Irmin Schmidt, since 1979, on which music by the krautrock band Can and its members has been released and re-released. It takes its name from the song "Spoon" on Can's Ege Bamyasi album. Hildegard and Irmin Schmidt's daughter Sandra Podmore has been director of Spoon Records since 2008.
Can Live Music is a double live album by the band Can, released in 1999 and recorded in the UK and West Germany between 1972 and 1977. It was originally included in the now out-of-print Can box set, Can Box.
A Place to Bury Strangers are an American rock band formed in 2002, in New York City. The trio is currently composed of Oliver Ackermann, John Fedowitz and Sandra Fedowitz (drums). Commonly known by the initials APTBS, the band plays a heavy, atmospheric Wall of Sound–influenced blend of noise rock, shoegaze and space rock.
The Grey Area is a Mute Records division founded in 1990 to restore and reissue the catalogue of artists who influenced Daniel Miller, head of Mute Records, and to reissue previous recordings of Mute artists. In 1983, Mute had to partner with Industrial Records for the reissue of Throbbing Gristle albums. This division was created following the partnerships signed with Can and Cabaret Voltaire.
The Lost Tapes is a compilation album of studio outtakes and live recordings by the German experimental rock band Can, which was originally released as an LP in 2012 by Spoon Records in conjunction with Mute Records. The compilation was curated by Irmin Schmidt and Daniel Miller, compiled by Irmin Schmidt and Jono Podmore, and edited by Jono Podmore.
Jagwar Ma is an Australian psychedelic dance band formed in Sydney in 2011. It consists of Gabriel Winterfield, Jono Ma, and bass guitarist Jack Freeman, who joined 2012. The band name is derived from a satirical compound of the word "jaguar" and Jono's surname. In 2013, Jagwar Ma signed with record labels Mom+Pop (US), Marathon Artists (EU), and Future Classic (Australia) and released its debut album Howlin'. It released its second album Every Now and Then on 14 October 2016.
Gormenghast is an opera in three acts composed by Irmin Schmidt to an English-language libretto by Duncan Fallowell, based on Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy. It premiered at the Opernhaus Wuppertal on 15 November 1998.
Made in Japan were an Australian indie rock band formed in 2009 by James Cooney on vocals and drums, Tom Davis on guitar, Jono Graham on guitar and Andrew Knox on bass guitar. Their sound was self-described as "dream-pop" and "groove based." It evolved from straightforward post-punk revival in their early releases to incorporate an ethereal shoegaze aesthetic. They released two studio albums, Sights and Sounds and Tame All Those Thoughts, before disbanding in 2014.
Live in Paris 1973 is a live double-album by German krautrock band Can, recorded at a performance of the band at L'Olympia in Paris, France. It was released on vinyl and CD by Spoon Records on 23 February 2024, two weeks after the death of Can member Damo Suzuki on 9 February 2024.
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