Bio Information: GUAPO Title: HISTORY of the VISITATION (Cuneiform Rune 354/355) Format: CD+DVD / LP+DVD
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Bio information: GUAPO Title: HISTORY OF THE VISITATION (Cuneiform Rune 354/355) Format: CD+DVD / LP+DVD Cuneiform promotion dept: (301) 589-8894 / fax (301) 589-1819 email: joyce [-at-] cuneiformrecords.com (Press & world radio); radio [-at-] cuneiformrecords.com (North American & world radio) www.cuneiformrecords.com FILE UNDER: ROCK “Guapo…share an affinity for aggressive, near-chaotic expansion with bands like Lightning Bolt and Hella…. If you ever want a bit more bite in your instrumental post-rock, Guapo have you covered.” –Pitchfork “Guapo…is all about a strain of prog you don’t take home to mom. When early prog was heavy, it was heavier than Sabbath. …Put your head around a much cleaner Lightening Bolt (or Ruins and This Heat), then add a touch of Meshuggah’s histrionics for the Guapo agenda.” –Magnet “This British post-everything trio return with a planet-bombing slab of prog rock somewhere between King Crimson’s Red and the debut album from This Heat. Not appearing on this summer’s Warped Tour.” –Alternative Press Prepare yourself for an experience that’s simultaneously otherworldly and assaultive. On paper, the music of Guapo reads like a riddle – the British quartet’s sound is based around ideas like controlled chaos, atonal harmony, uplifting darkness, and beautiful destruction. Nothing about the band or their work seems to adhere to even the most open-minded set of preconceptions about the meaning of umbrella terms like “rock,” or “progressive,” or even “experimental.” But when you abandon the need to reconcile any of these concepts with each other, and simply let their latest album, History Of The Visitation, speak for itself, everything becomes radiantly clear. History Of The Visitation is the ninth album from the forward-looking foursome, and their second for Cuneiform Records (their last one for the label was 2004’s Five Suns, and they’ve since released Black Oni (2005) on Ipecac and Elixirs (2008) on Neurot Recordings. The band’s return to Cuneiform finds them following through on the kind of epic constructions that sprung forth from the aforementioned albums. The record is dominated by the 26-minute tour de force “The Pilman Radiant,” offset only by the 11-minute journey “Tremors from the Future” and the considerably more compact sonic sculpture known as “Complex #7.” Over the course of the band’s 19-year history, fans and journalists alike have tossed a lot of comparisons in Guapo’s direction. Magma, The Ruins, King Crimson, Univers Zero, and many more names from the “progressive” and “Rock In Opposition” realms have been bandied about as reference points, and references to the likes of The Mars Volta or Boris wouldn’t be completely out of line either. And while elements of all of the above can be heard within the bold, bracing aural environs of History Of The Visitation, they only account for part of the story. Certainly the commonalities of the aforementioned artists – a tendency towards dark, moody, sometimes menacing musical colors and an abhorrence of all overt rock tropes – are crucial to Guapo’s m.o. as well. But History Of The Visitation can’t simply be considered the sum total of its most obvious influences. For one thing, the presence of reedmen Thomas Scott and Dave Newhouse from Maryland avant jazz-rock institution The Muffins among the album’s guest musicians should alert keen-minded listeners that the take-no-prisoners harmonic melee of modern jazz is among the sonic subtexts here. And the addition of strings, woodwind, and brass serves to underscore the orchestral side of what Guapo accomplishes in the sweep, scope, and near-symphonic grandeur of their extended compositions. In other words, when approaching HOTV, leave room in your mind’s eye for the image of Sun Ra jamming with Stravinsky. Of course, the band that currently comprises guitarist Kavus Torabi (Cardiacs, Knifeworld), keyboardist Emmet Elvin (Chrome Hoof, Knifeworld), bassist James Sedwards (Nought), and drummer/leader David J. Smith didn’t simply spring into existence fully evolved in the mid-‘90s. Several personnel shifts ago, Guapo (Spanish for “handsome,” in case you were wondering) began back in 1994, rooted in a post-punk, avant-hardcore approach. With a line-up consisting of Smith on drums, Matt Thompson (guitar, vocals), and Rojer Macoustra (bass), Guapo released several 7" singles on its own label, Power Tool, before unleashing its first full-length album, Towers Open Fire, in 1997. Around this time, the band embarked on an intensive period of touring throughout mainland Europe, playing on a regular basis in France, the Balkans, Italy and many other countries. Afterwards, Guapo slimmed down to the core duo of Thompson and Smith for the release of Hirohito (1998) on the French label Pandemonium Records. By then, the music had taken on a far more experimental hue, incorporating electronics, sampling, and turntables into the rock palette to create a wild collage of densely woven noise that still left room for quieter, more contemplative pieces. This approach was continued, albeit with more conventional instrumentation, on the collaborative improvised album Death Seed, recorded with touring partners Ruins and Caroline Kraabel and John Edwards (of the saxophone/double-bass duo Shock Exchange). [press release continued on verso] Guapo spent a large part of 1999 and 2000 building its own recording and rehearsal studio complex, Zed One Studios, in conjunction with their long-term producer Pete Lyons. The first recording to come out of Zed One was Great Sage, Equal Of Heaven (2001), released on San Francisco label tumult and again featuring significant contributions from Kraabel and Edwards. Late 2001 saw Guapo expand back to a trio with the addition of keyboardist Daniel O'Sullivan (Thompson and Smith had played in the O’Sullivan- led ensemble Doktor Miasma). The first recording that this trio released was The Ducks and Drakes of Guapo and Cerberus Shoal (2003). The drone-based piece was recorded as a split CD with Cerberus Shoal. Guapo’s 2004 Cuneiform debut, Five Suns, made use of vintage equipment such as Fender Rhodes, mellotron, Moogs, and gongs to create a color-saturated patchwork of epic, primordial beauty. The new instrumentation allowed for an opening out of the sound into more ambitious vistas, where progressive influences are turned on their head by both the infusion of hardcore rock energy and the use of hypnotic, trance-like repetition. Over the course of 46 minutes the manic jazz-inflected drumming, brooding zeuhl bass and pointillist keyboards maintain a relentless driving momentum while deftly negotiating the ebb and flow of what is, in effect, a single piece of music. Bringing things full circle by featuring intense, suite-length works and more visceral, concise pieces, History Of The Visitation was largely recorded live in the studio in the spring of 2012, and showcases the best ensemble performance of Guapo’s career to date. Both the CD and the limited-edition vinyl versions of the album come with a bonus DVD featuring a spellbinding performance of “Five Suns” filmed at NEARfest 2006 in Bethlehem, PA, and “King Lindorm” from the 2007 Rock In Opposition Festival in Carmaux, France. This is the only live footage of the band available to the public and features former member Daniel O'Sullivan of Ulver and Sun 0))). Guapo has continued to tour worldwide, playing with bands such as Fantomas, Magma, Univers Zero, Melvins, Dalek, Earth, Neurosis, Ruins, Sunn O)))), Zombi, Isis, and Khanate. The group was also featured in the 2012 "Rock In Opposition" documentary Romantic Warriors II. Guapo’s intense live show continues to progress and expand, as the influences heard on the records are thrown into the air and reassembled as an incendiary mixture of instrumental dexterity and telepathic interplay. History Of The Visitation captures all of these elements while bringing the band’s compositional prowess to a new level. It might be a tough equation to prove on a blackboard, but all the pieces fit just right into the ears of adventurous listeners. For more information on Guapo, see: www.guapo.co.uk PROMOTIONAL PHOTOS [photographer: Ruth Bayer] Digital [High-Resolution] versions of these images and more are available for download on www.cuneiformrecords.com WHAT THE PRESS HAS SAID ABOUT GUAPO FIVE SUNS CUNEIFORM 2004 Line-up: Dave Smith (Drums, Percussion), Matt Thompson (Bass, Guitar, Electronics) Daniel O’Sullivan (Fender Rhodes, Organ, Mellotron, Harmonium, Guitar Electronics) “Guapo…is all about a strain of prog you don’t take home to mom. When early prog was heavy, it was heavier than Sabbath. King Crimson’s hammering 1974 album Red and most of the Magma discography…steered prog away from audiences that believe little people live inside trees. Put your head around a much cleaner Lightening Bolt (or Ruins and This Heat), then add a touch of Meshuggah’s histrionics for the Guapo agenda.” –Andrew Earles, Magnet, V. 12, No.63 “This British post-everything trio return with a planet-bombing slab of prog rock somewhere between King Crimson’s Red and the debut album from This Heat. Not appearing on this summer’s Warped Tour.” –Jason Pettigrew, Alternative Press, April 2004 “Guapo makes rock music that includes elements of various sub-genres: progressive, experimental, space and noise. …Five Suns…is powerful music, anchored by Matt Thompson’s thunderous bass-lines and Dave Smith’s heavy-handed percussion. …Daniel O’Sullivan adds swaths of electronics and keyboard textures (including many vintage seventies prog machines like mellotron and harmonium) - both Thompson and O’Sullivan contribute spacey guitar lines. …formidable in conception.” –Christian Carey, Copper Press “The press announcement pronounces similarities to prog-rock icons such as Magma, King Crimson, and minimalist composer Terry Riley.