History
These Are Powers were an avant-garde, experimental noise dance band from Brooklyn, New York founded by singer and guitarist Anna Barie and bassist Pat Noecker (Liars) in 2006.
2008-2011
Producer Bill Salas (Brenmar) replaced McGrath as drummer for These Are Powers originally on a standing electro-acoustic drum kit before transitioning later into more electronic production. The band wrote their Taro Tarot EP and the All Aboard Future LP in Salas' hometown of Chicago between several American and Canadian DIY tours. Influences at this time were Top 40 American Hip Hop, UK Dubstep, 1990s House music and New Age. These Are Powers increasingly collaborated with other musicians, dancers, visual artists, designers and videographers for their album artwork, performances, costuming, set design, and gallery events, becoming more of a collective than a band.
They gained a reputation worldwide for their high energy live shows, often in unusual venues. TAP performed increasingly in Europe, as well as in museums and galleries. In 2009 they had an artist residency in China and played shows nationwide, organised by Beijing label Maybe Mars and promoters Split Works. [1] Their final release was their CANDYMAN 12 inch on RVNG Intl. The artwork for the album was by Kevin O'Neil and inspired by the fetish of Sploshing.
The band announced in early February, 2011 that they had broken up during a memorial show for late promoter Ariel Panero at Death By Audio.
Noecker played a prepared bass with a wooden dowel put under the strings which functioned as an additional 3rd bridge, shortening the string length to cause an altered musical scale with the fret positions. This would be the precursor to a custom designed bass, called "The Burner Bass" by experimental Dutch luthier Yuri Landman which Noecker now uses in his solo project RAFT.
In 2012, Anna Barie moved to France founded the experimental electronic duo DUBAI with producer and engineer Johannes Buff. Pat Noecker revived his solo project RAFT in late 2011 and Bill Salas continues to DJ and produce as BRENMAR.
Liars is an Australian-American experimental rock band formed in Brooklyn, New York in 2000. Angus Andrew is the founding and only constant member of Liars, currently joined by multi-instrumentalist Cameron Deyell and drummer Laurence Pike. Aaron Hemphill played with the band from its inception until his amicable departure from the project in 2017. Julian Gross joined the band for their second album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned in 2004, and played with the band until his departure in 2014. Liars have released ten studio albums and are signed to Mute Records. They combine elements of punk-rock with electronica, with Andrew inspired by artists such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), The Cure, PJ Harvey, Underworld, The Doors and Michael Franks.
Excepter is an experimental music group from Brooklyn, founded in 2002 by No-Neck Blues Band member John Fell Ryan. They have released their work on labels such as Load Records and Animal Collective's Paw Tracks, and are known for their improvisational approach to playing both live and in the studio.
Yuri Landman is a Dutch inventor of musical instruments and musician who has made several experimental electric string instruments for a number of artists including Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Liars, Jad Fair of Half Japanese, Liam Finn, and Laura-Mary Carter. Besides his musical activities he is also a graphic novel artist.
Food for Animals were an American hip hop group formed in 2001 near Washington, D.C. The group featured Vulture Voltaire, Ricky Rabbit, Dr. Dan, and HY. Their music was generally categorized as underground hip hop with a strong tendency towards noise music. According to Pitchfork, their latest albums feature a sound best appreciated by "those with a high tolerance for serial grime and a taste for the sharper, harder edge of hip-hop".
Syrinx was a Canadian electronic music group active from 1970 to 1972. Propelled by the compositions of keyboardist John Mills-Cockell and backed by saxophonist Doug Pringle and percussionist Alan Wells, the group broke musical ground with their innovative use of the Moog synthesizer and their world music inspirations. Their song "Tillicum" received national attention as the theme music for the television series Here Come the Seventies.
Fuck Buttons is an electronic music duo formed in Bristol in 2004 by Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power.
Craig Leon is an American-born record producer, composer and arranger currently living in England. Leon was instrumental in launching the careers of many recording artists including The Ramones, Suicide, Talking Heads and Blondie.
HOSS Records is an experimental independent record label. HOSS was formed in 2004 and is currently based out of Brooklyn, New York, and Atlanta, Georgia. The label was active in the Baltimore, Maryland, music scene between 2007 and 2010 before entering "a year and a half spent lying in semi-limbo". As of 2011, the label is once again active.
Sensations' Fix is an Italian progressive rock/electronic musical ensemble led by Franco Falsini.
Harald Grosskopf is a German electronic musician. He played with several Krautrock and progressive rock bands of the 1970s in Germany, and released solo music.
RVNG Intl. is an independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded in 2003 by Matt Werth, the label is run by Werth and focuses on experimental dance and electronic music, often incorporating avant-garde genres. Release formats include vinyl, CDs, and digital downloads. In 2011, they were named one of the top 50 indie labels in America by Billboard.
Duppy Gun is a dancehall record label run by Cameron Stallones of Sun Araw and M. Geddes Gengras, based in Los Angeles, California. The label began in Portmore, Jamaica in 2011 after a collaboration between Stallones, Gengras and Jamaican vocal group The Congos on the album Icon Give Thank for RVNG Intl. Duppy Gun releases feature collaborations from American experimental electronic artists and Jamaican singers. Past albums have included production from Peaking Lights, Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, Matthewdavid and vocals by I Jahbar, Lukani, Fyah Flames, G sudden, and Dayone. Since their second release, the 12" vinyl Spy / Up Wit You, the label has been distributed by Los Angeles' Stones Throw Records. The 2014 double LP Duppy Gun Productions Vol 1 featured all of their previous released tracks as well as new music and featured vocalists "from more established roots singers to fisherman to very young neighborhood kids."
Pauline Anna Tuell Strom was an American electronic music composer and synthesist best known under the pseudonym Trans-Millenia Consort. Strom made seven recordings between 1982 and 1988 including three LPs and four cassette tapes. Her 1982 debut, Trans-Millenia Consort, was released on Ether Ship Records.
Reassemblage is the second studio album of Portland, Oregon duo Visible Cloaks, consisting of musicians Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile. The record is named after Trinh T. Minh-ha's 1982 documentary film of the same name, since both works observe its subject matter without showing meaning to it. Reassemblage departs from Doran's past hip-hop releases for a more high-quality style inspired by the works of Japanese synthesizer music acts such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Ryuichi Sakamoto, all of which were featured on Doran's 2010 mix Fairlights, Mallets & Bamboo.
The River is an extended play written and produced from 2009 to 2010 by Canadian electronic musician Michael Silver, known by his stage name as CFCF. It was inspired by Werner Herzog's 1982 film Fitzcarraldo. Described by RVNG Intl.'s press release as a series of "lucid sound sequences from a lunatic mind," the experimental downtempo psychedelic new age EP was analyzed by music journalist Jonny Coleman as the story of a character who is stranded in a rural, tribal land. The River is a set of six original tracks by Silver with digital download versions of the record containing four remixes of songs from the EP by acts such as Jacques Renault, Coyote, and Games. The River was released by label RVNG Intl. on October 12, 2010 to generally positive reviews from critics, some reviewers calling its more modern-sounding cuts to be the best of the entire record.
Lex is a mini-album and partial soundtrack by Portland, Oregon duo Visible Cloaks, consisting of Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile. Continuing the experimental electronic music stylings and East and West relationship ideas of their previous work Reassemblage (2017), the album takes place in a future utopian world with aliens talking in a hybrid of several languages to the point of speaking a "non-language." The speech sounds on the album were made by Doran feeding dialects and accents to the language translation program Infovox Voice Manager.
Syndrome Syndrome is the debut studio album of Australian techno duo Gardland, consisting of Alex Murray and Mark Smith. It was released by the label RVNG Intl. on 29 October 2013. The album was produced by Gardland based on a deal RVNG Intl. leader Matt Werth made with the duo after he listened to a performance they did on the radio. Recorded in Marrickville over three weeks of improvisational sessions, Syndrome Syndrome is very harsh in tone and has an open-ended style that's unconventional to most electronic music genres. In critical reviews, Syndrome Syndrome was praised for its unique arrangement and sound methods while also being panned for its long length.
This Is How You Smile is the sixth studio album by American musician Helado Negro. It was released in March 2019 under RVNG Intl.
Ekaterina Yuryevna Shilonosova, known professionally as Kate NV, is a Russian singer, songwriter, record producer, and designer. Alongside her solo career, she is a member of the Moscow-based rock band Glintshake. Her debut solo album Binasu was released in 2016, followed by для FOR in 2018 and Room for the Moon in 2020. In 2022, looking to raise funds for charity, she released her fourth album bouquet.
Lucrecia Dalt is a Colombian experimental musician who currently resides in Berlin. While her earlier releases were rooted in electronic dance music her work has evolved over time to become more overtly abstract and experimental.
