SAX RUINS / Barberos / a.P.A.t.T / Massicott

Formed by Tatsuya Yoshida (drums) and Ono Ryoko (alto Sax) to perform RUINS’s songs in 2006, the duo has only done a few live shows until now. As Sax Ruins, they have restructured the orchestration of Ruins with the involvement of the saxophone with the result sounding like a big band playing progressive Jazz Core.
ONO RYOKO is actively working as an improvisational musician in Nagoya, Japan. She also plays in jazz, rock, funk, rhythm & blues and hip hop bands, as well as working as a studio musician. In 2007, she formed her own band, “Ryorchestra.” Ono has created her own musical language, “Language R,” to compose and write lyrics. Some tracks have dramatic movements like progressive rock, and some have clear classical influences. Lately, she uses “non-breath” circulation technique and multi-phonics to explore and pursue endless, rich and complex sounds.
TATSUYA YOSHIDA is one of the most innovative drummer/composer/improviser in the Japanese avant-garde music scene. Yoshida is the founder and drummer of Ruins. Yoshida crafts a new, complex and concentrated style, incorporating the expressiveness of prog rock, the freedom of jazz and the energy of punk with Sax Ruins. This group’s unique basic instrumentation of drums and bass was no less than a palace revolt against the established role of the rhythm section. As if setting the basement servant headquarters aflame and then tromping upstairs to take control of the house, the two musicians let their amazingly intricate rhythmic patterns become the music — not that “rhythmic patterns” is much of a description of what most of it sounds like, kind of like calling the Thames River “water.” He also plays in numerous groups; he needs to, to sustain sufficient space for his overflowing creativity. Yoshida has worked with many musicians such as John Zorn, Derek Bailey, Bill Laswell, Keiji Haino, Otomo Yoshihide etc. and has been released more than 100 CDs.

BARBEROS are absurdist electro-noise theatre from Liverpool, Barberos are not like other bands. An awesome two-drummer percussive battery, shuddering synth noise and frantic tempo switches, whirling between jazz, prog, avant-noise, breakcore and pounding polyrhythms all whilst clad in skintight full-body spandex. Taking influence from Ruins, Tangerine Dream, Boredoms, Aphex Twin and more, Barberos have toured relentlessly over the past 5 years, playing shows in Russia, Scandinavia, The Baltics and much of Western Europe, sharing stages with Melt Banana, Tim Exile, Charles Hayward, Kayo Dot, Ruins Alone, Liars and more. In the last 12 months, BARBEROS have received excellent reviews from such online press as The Quietus and Spin magazine, following shows at Primavera Sound, The Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia and Supernormal Festival.

Some say that a.P.A.t.T.‘s sound is something of a moving target. This is, after all, the band that swaps instruments mid-song, starred in a TV sitcom, and has even run its own small country for an evening: a restless, relentless take on 21st century music and performance through a lens of knowing, winking, quintessentially British humour. French fans liken the band to Monty Python sketches being played by ‘le Floyd’…or something.
Over the past ten years a.P.A.t.T. has inspired comparisons with Devo, Metronomy, Frank Zappa, The Residents and Cardiacs, without actually sounding like any of them. In Fun with Music, “Liverpool’s multi-genre veterans” (The Skinny) have condensed their vision-quest into 45 minutes of hooky, style-busting material.

With the agressiveness of a tiger in Formica, Massicot oscillates between frank and noisy moments and hypnotic, repetitive phases. An obsessive, rythmic guitar, a modeled bass, a violin as an free electron, tropical kraut drums led by latvian poetry form a mass, a constellation of electrical dinosaurs, imported pineapples, cloud-drawings, intricate rhythms and Dada-jokes.