John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. In 2013, Down Beat described Zorn as "one of our most important composers" and in 2020 Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
The Lounge Lizards were an eclectic musical group founded by saxophonist John Lurie and his brother, pianist Evan Lurie, in 1978. Initially known for their ironic, tongue-in-cheek take on jazz, The Lounge Lizards eventually became a showcase for John Lurie's sophisticated compositions straddling jazz and many other genres. They were active until about 1998 with the Lurie brothers as the only constant members, though many leading New York City based musicians were members of the group.
Jennifer Charles is an American singer and songwriter. Along with Oren Bloedow, she co-founded the New York band Elysian Fields. Her work is known for its emotional intensity, with her writing exploring nature, love, loss, death, myth, and identity, often with philosophical and literary influences. She has a contralto voice.
Oren Bloedow is an American singer, guitarist and bassist. He founded the band Elysian Fields in 1995 with Jennifer Charles. His father, Jerry Bloedow, was a playwright, poet, and film editor whose theater, the Hardware Poet's Playhouse, participated in the New York avant-garde scene in the 1950s and 1960s.
Firewater is an American band founded by American singer/instrumentalist Tod A. in New York City in 1995, after the breakup of his previous group Cop Shoot Cop. A self-described "world punk" band, Firewater incorporate diverse elements of world music with punk rock rhythms, including cabaret, ska, jazz, folk and most notably Eastern European influences such as klezmer and gypsy music, which has led to their inclusion in the gypsy punk genre.
Soviet Kitsch is the major label debut and third album by American singer/songwriter Regina Spektor. It was originally released on Shoplifter Records in May 2003 but was reissued in August 2004 when Spektor signed with Sire Records. The title is drawn from Milan Kundera's expression for the vacuous aesthetics of Stalinist-style communism, a theme in his book The Unbearable Lightness of Being. One version of the album was released with a bonus DVD, which included a short promotional film titled The Survival Guide to Soviet Kitsch and the music video for the song "Us."
Paul Bevoir is an English pop-rock songwriter and musician. He is probably best known as a member of the 1980s English pop band the Jetset, who were associated with the British mod revival.
Jamie Saft is an American keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist and composer. He was born in New York City and raised a Conservative Jew, and studied at Tufts University and the New England Conservatory of Music.
"The Nameless" is a song by American heavy metal band Slipknot. The song was released as the only single from their first live album, 9.0: Live, while it is also included on their third studio album, Vol. 3: . A music video was released for the single in late 2005 and also was featured on MTV's Rock Top 10 as number two.
Jetset Records was a New York–based indie rock record label. Founded by Shelley Maple in 1996, the label's first release was a reissue of German punk rock band The Golden Lemons' fourth album, Punkrock. The label has released music by a variety of independent bands, including Firewater, Sun Kil Moon and Mogwai.
Filmworks XII: Three Documentaries is an album containing three scores by John Zorn for documentary films released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik Records, in 2002. It features music that Zorn wrote and recorded for Homecoming (2002), a tribute documentary about the dance program at Performance Space 122 in New York by Charles Dennis, Shaolin Ulysses (2002) a film by Mei-Juin Chen and Martha Burr that follows Shaolin monks living and training in the United States, and Family Found (2002), a portrait of outsider artist Morton Bartlett which was directed by Emily Harris.
Great Jewish Music: Marc Bolan is a tribute album featuring the music of English singer/songwriter Marc Bolan of the band T.Rex. Produced by Danny Cohen, it was released on John Zorn's label Tzadik Records in 1998 as part of their series on "Radical Jewish Culture", following similar prior tributes to Burt Bacharach and Serge Gainsbourg.
Ben Perowsky is an American drummer, percussionist, composer, and music producer. He is the drummer on stage in the 8 TONY award winning Broadway musical Hadestown. Perowsky leads the Ben Perowsky Trio, Moodswing Orchestra and Upstream Trio with Chris Speed and John Medeski. He is a founding member of the electric jazz group Lost Tribe. A prolific sideman, Perowsky has performed with Roy Ayers, John Scofield, The Lounge Lizards, Joan As Police Woman, Elysian Fields, Darryl Jenifer, Uri Caine, Dave Douglas, Mike Stern, Bob Berg, Walter Becker, Steven Bernstein., and John Zorn.
Tzadik Records is a record label in New York City that specializes in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995. He is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases. Tzadik is a not-for-profit, cooperative record label.
The Jetset were a 1980s English pop band, who were associated with the British mod revival.
La Mar Enfortuna is the Sephardic side project from the alt rock group Elysian Fields, Oren Bloedow and Jennifer Charles. La Mar Enfortuna is a modern interpretation of lost or forgotten music, mostly of the Sephardim, from the 11th to the 16th century, with songs sung in Ladino, Arabic, Aramaic, Spanish, Greek, and English. They incorporate the sounds of jazz, folk, rock, Middle Eastern, and Latin musics. Besides Charles and Bloedow, the core group as it now stands includes Doug Wieselman, Ted Reichman, Robert DiPietro, and Brahim Fribgane.
Psychopharmacology is the third album by Firewater, released on April 17, 2001 through Jetset Records.
Dianna Marie St. Hilaire, better known as Opāru, is an American actor, singer and composer from Los Angeles, California. She was born in Modesto, California and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her genre is Dark Electro Pop, Pop, and Ethereal.
Dead Horse One are a neo-psychedelic/shoegaze band based in Valence, France. The band was founded in 2011 by Olivier Debard, Ludovik Naud, Antoine Pinet and Jérôme Simonian. Simonian later departed, and Maxime Garcia and Ivan Tziboulsky joined. The band has performed at the 2013 Liverpool Psych Fest and have shared stages with the Telescopes, the Wands and Sound Sweet Sound.
Bleed Your Cedar is the debut album by the American alternative rock band Elysian Fields, released in 1996. It was a commercial disappointment.
