Drag City Recording Artists: Blues Control "Over the course of seven years and five LPs (as well as a couple of singles and a handful of cassettes), the Philadelphia-based duo of Lea Cho and Russ Waterhouse have built their own extraordinary soundworld out of very minimal means. A cheap electric guitar, electric piano and synthesizers, percussion, and pedals and loops are the basis of Blues Control’s palette, but their vision expresses both concision and a broad-minded approach that brings with it ambient music, dub, breezy analog electronics, homemade/amateurish jazz improvisation, and lilting classicism. Valley Tangents is their latest LP, following last year’s FRKWYS collaboration with zither musician Laraaji (Edward Larry Gordon), and, continuing a penchant for label-hopping, it’s their first for Drag City. [...] At times, they project a vibe that, while completely honest and bullshit-free, is also linked to the “all in” DIY/outsider environment of the 1970s and early 80s. Blues Control are one of the most intriguingly unclassifiable outfits in contemporary music, putting forth music that is clear and refined while also being absolutely incomparable." (Clifford Allen, Tiny Mix Tapes)
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Fursaxa Fursaxa is Tara Burke. Formerly a member of the Philadelphia band UN, Tara started her Fursaxa project in 1999 after UN disbanded. Since then she has released six full-length albums on labels such as ATP, Time-Lag, and Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace, as well as four self-released discs. Her hypnotic music has been compared to both Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico and medieval mystic Hildegard Von Bingen. Her live performances are based around vocals, flutes, percussion, organ, guitar, and mandolin, all layered and looped in an attempt to transport her audience to ethereal and sacred realms, while her recordings add an expanded array of instrumentation such as violin, cello, banjo, balalaika, accordion, dulcimer, and bells and other exotic percussion. She has recorded and collaborated with a variety of artists as a guest or side-project, including Acid Mothers Temple, fellow Philadelphians Bardo Pond, the Iditarod, Six Organs of Admittance, and Helena Espvall (Espers), and she was part of the Valerie Project, a 2007 expanded group that recorded a new score for legendary Czech New Wave film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. While Fursaxa has toured extensively with fellow travelers including Jack Rose, Sharron Kraus, Alexander Tucker, and Spires That in the Sunset Rise, she is currently playing and recording in the rural surroundings of Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. |
