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The Vic Rawlings/Mike Bullock duo combines classical string instruments and electronics in ways that reveal the core elements of each. Rawlings plays amplified cello and an electronic instrument he built out of exposed circuit boards and speaker cones. Bullock plays amplified contrabass, test oscillators, and feedback. The result is a stark sound world utterly alienated from the glib fluidity commonly associated with bowed strings. The sounds are by turns deep-frozen and blisteringly hot. The rhythms are those of hands moving over a workbench or methodically slashing tires. After playing in various bands together since 1997, Rawlings and Bullock first played as a duo in summer 2000. They toured France in October 2003 in support of “Fall of Song” [Chloë]. They returned to France in 2004, and in fall 2005 they toured throughout the eastern U.S. as a trio with Lebanese trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj. about the artists:
He performs regularly as a soloist and as a member of undr quartet, The BSC, and in duo and trio ensembles with Michael Bullock, Greg Kelley, Bhob Rainey, Sean Meehan, Jason Lescalleet, James Coleman, Tatsuya Nakatani, and Howard Stelzer. Collaborators have included Eddie Prevost (AMM), Donald Miller (Borbetomagus), Daniel Carter (Other Dimensions in Music), Laurence Cook, Jaap Blonk, Masashi Harada, and Stephen Drury. Rawlings appears on the record labels Audio Dispatch, Grob, Sedimental, Emanem, Boxmedia, Chloe, Absurd, and Rykodisc. He has performed as a soloist/ composer with Nicola Hawkins Dance Company and has composed scores for films by Alla Kovgan and Jeff Silva. He has toured throughout the US and in France. Michael Bullock (contrabass, feedback systems, digital video) is an active member of the Boston improvised music scene. As a soloist, Bullock plays the contrabass like an empty wooden room creaking under its own weight. His performances are permeated by a precarious sense of timing reminiscent of Buster Keaton. He also plays the acoustic feedback of his bass and amplifier, sweeping the bass through the air to change the tone, and modulating it with test oscillators and tuning forks. As a video artist, Bullock has collaborated with artists from Hefty Records and from Vidvox LLC. His short video ÒIn/At TensionÓ has appeared at the 2:13 festival and Sync Festival, both in Athens, Greece (the latter festival also featured De La Soul, his closest brush with Hip-Hop stardom so far). His regular groups include his duo with cellist Vic Rawlings, The BSC, and rise set twilight with Linda Aubry. He has toured extensively as a soloist, frequently traveling with trumpeter Greg Kelley, and also tours Europe. He has collaborated with L Quan Ninh, Daniel Carter, Mazen Kerbaj, Christian Wolff, and Theodore Bikel. His recordings appear on Kissy, Grob, Intransitive, CIMP, Emanem, Rounder and Naxos. In 2002 he founded Chlo‘, a label dedicated to experimental music. Plus One Events, an experimental music series, was founded in 2005 in collaboration with Aubry. Press Clips: [Rawlings and Bullock] trade miniature feedback spikes and various scrapings, bangings and silences so deep and wide you could steer a submarine through them. Rawlings employs feedback circuitry and a lab assistant’s attention to detail… Only extremely infrequently would it be possible for the source instruments to be identified by a casual listener… A tough, unforgiving listen on disc. - Keith Moliné, The Wire This disc has endless ripples of what so many electric improv records (hell, so many records) tend to lack: inflection. - Brendan Murray Your CD is fantastic. It makes me think I’ve never appreciated electronic or electro-acoustic before. Jack Wright |