New Restiform Bodies & Bomarr Remixes
Listen to RB's remix of Mochipet's Antion on Atari track — from the release Master P on Atari — HERE and Bomarr's remix of Master P on Obe One Kenobi from the same release HERE.
Wild XMas With Bomarr, Vol.4
Ok, so Vol. 3 wasn't the last. There may even be a Volume 5 in 2010, but for now, enjoy the brand new installment of the Wild Xmas Series. Featuring Klaus Nomi,The Sonics, Juice Crew,Galaxie 500, Rondo Brothers and more.
» Download Wild X-Mas With Bomarr Vol.4 HERE
Spread it like fire: http://bit.ly/mixmas
Designed Entropy 7" feat. Bomarr
As of right now, you can pre-order this limited 7" that my friends at Gold Robot Records are putting out. It features myself, Copy, Meanest Man Contest, and Roman Ruins.
======
Artists: Meanest Man Contest, Bomarr, Copy, Roman Ruins
Title: Designed Entropy
Format: 7-inch colored vinyl (brown/orange)
Run: 500
Cover Art: WCM
Release Date: September 15, 2009
Each vinyl record is accompanied by a download code for MP3 files.
The first entry in the Designed Entropy series features exclusive tracks by 4 different artists inspired from a common starting point. As a cohesive unit, this EP explores the relationship between design, structure, and humanity. Suggested reading to accompany the listening experience: "Atlas of Novel Tectonics" by Jesse Reiser.
Tracklist:
A1 : Bomarr - Exchanges Among Systems
A2 : Copy - Karate Eyes
B1 : Meanest Man Contest - Takitani Edit
B2 : Roman Ruins - Plea For Permanence
PRE-ORDER IT HERE.
-Bomarr
» Listen to Bomarr's track Exchanges Among Systems here.
Telephone Jim Jesus "Blue In The Face" music video
Music video by Thom Buttery of PRYMEDIA for the track Blue In The Face from Tel.Jim.Jesus's LP A Point Too Far To Astronaut.
Animated macro photography of television pixels, mostly of faces in a sinister style! -Thom Buttery
Brothers Backword - "Stupid Intelligent" mixtape
Brothers Backword will do for the Beastie Boys what the Bourne Ultimatum did for James Bond. Unpretentiously, Brothers Backword are a 21st century update on the classic components of Hip Hop and dance music that made them so lovable in the first place. David Bryant or PASSAGE (Restiform Bodies, Anticon) and Mike Busse (Chronic Future, Modern Art Records partner) rap and sing in legible, irresistible flows. Topical tracks like Special Education, essentially a rapped three minute rendering of the film Notes on a Scandal, wind away from convention far enough to refresh themselves, but swing swiftly back to Earth with syrupy hooks, damaged yet effective verses and downright provocative bridges. Brothers Backword coo and holler like hood rats, with none of the outsider politics or hang ups so common to indie rap. Dave and Mike are the classic "big guy, little guy" combo. Standing 5'7 and 5'11 Brothers Backword set the stage for impressive, tempo melting performances, and their vocal abilities flex to demonstrate the audio equivalent in their recordings.
The "Stupid Intelligent" mix-tape proves the perfect hunting ground for Passage and Busse. They interact with, infect and invade every track, from Mr. Oizo to Talking Heads to Nas. Fearless of studio magic, they add talk box back ups to Shannon and manipulate hooks from beyond your memory. Suitably aggressive and comedic lyrics, weave in and around chopped, meticulously syncopated Christian Bale sound bites. With an EP due out late this summer, Brothers Backword's "Stupid Intelligent" mix tape is a glimpse of what's to come, but in this future I don't know if we can win this war.
I'm honored to premiere this here. These boys have really outdone themselves on this one.
myspace
download link
Courtesy of the bomarr blog
the bomarr blog returns
the bomarr blog is back from the dead with a new and improved design and some great content to come. Let's read what the author himself as to say about it:
I started it off with a track some of you may have already heard, Meanest Man Contest's remix of "Night at the Knight School" by Thee More Shallows. It's tough to pick a "comeback post" after having the blog be inactive for a few years now, so I'm going to be playing around with the format a bit and just posting some random stuff I've been enjoying lately. You may love it, you may hate it. Feel free to post feedback, suggestions, etc. Not sure I'll be posting every single day, but go ahead and subscribe to the blog's rss feed to get updated every time I post something new. Hope you enjoy. I've been meaning to start this back up for some time now.
"Bobby Trendy Addendum" live video
BOBBY TRENDY ADDENDUM from michael raines on Vimeo.
RB's article from CityWeekly.net
Thursday, February 19,2009
Bodies Rest; Mope Some
Restiform Bodies’ Passage contemplates cynicism on TV Loves You Back.
By Randy Harward
Passage, aka David Bryant, is at a physical, creative and personal crossroads.
Waiting for a light rail car, he wonders how he might save his relationship, forge a “real” career, become financially comfortable, and “find happiness all the while” making music on his own and with his band, Restiform Bodies. He ponders why, after a decade as a musician, the first date of the big tour is at a pizza parlor in Arcata, Calif. “Not that I’m ungrateful,” he says. With all that mental racket, it’s no wonder his music is a pastiche of white noise and Burroughs-esque cut-up sounds, like an analog radio dial spun from end to end of an all-inclusive, frequency modulated band.
On the group’s second album TV Loves You Back, Restiform Bodies—a trio completed by also-solo artists Telephone Jim Jesus (George Chadwick on synths, samples and effects) and Bomarr (Matt Valerio handling beats and percussion)—the group issues a scathingly sensitive indictment of bling culture and the American strip mall, what Bryant calls “network-trash life with a spiritual awareness in a funny, entertaining and genuinely positive way.” Restiform doesn’t really play to the Anticon label’s rep of supplying hip-hop and dance music that bucks their respective familiar characteristics.
On “Pimp Like God,” Restiform repeatedly pulls you in and out of a vintage 1980s new-wave groove and cold hip-hop burn.“Opulent Soul” mines the same decade, specifically something between Depeche Mode’s synth pop and Spandau Ballet’s crooning new romanticism, while also putting Eminem through a Digital Underground sieve and tossing in futuristic static, clicks and breaks. And you might say “Consumer Culture Wave” is hip-hop all the way through, talking about pussy and screwin’ “like you mean it … like you got a reputation to uphold,” but for the somnambulant sing-song rhymes.
Bryant says the Anticon typecasting is hotly debated, “one of those well-trodden areas” in the artist owned-and-operated label’s camp. Most of the acts, like Why?, Subtle, Odd Nosdam, SJ Esau
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and Dosh, have been called “the hip-hop equivalent of post-rock”—the implication being that these artists appropriate hip-hop instrumentation and gear for purposes not originally intended. It’s not necessarily an accurate or fair description. “I do not consider Restiform Bodies to be post hip-hop,” says Bryant, citing Subtle and Themselves as better fits in that they use classic elements of hip-hop to “make great songs” and subvert the sound.
Restiform, he says, is electronic music and “definitely” hip-hop. However, if he has to call it anything, he’d choose “amateur slop or kids’ stuff or bad demos.”
Bryant’s low self-appraisal stems from other things he’s trying to figure out, yet somehow muddles through with some success. He knows the stylistic hopscotch can be considered bad business, but “I can’t sit before a piano and knock out a verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, verse, et cetera, from the same seat.” He admits a lack of skills and embraces his shortcomings. “I’d probably be more successful, but I do cherish that handicap because I find myself in places when writing songs without totally predictable options.”
It’s a suitable method by which to soundtrack “all this cynical material” and in doing so, make “a totally uncynical record.” But Bryant, ever the cynic, says Restiform didn’t even accomplish that much. “People get scared when you try to go about making ‘conscious’ art without cutting cynicism, so it found its way in. It’s one of my biggest regrets, letting the cynicism take over this record.”
Source: Salt Lake City Weekly
Passage & Bomarr interview [BLEACH BLACK]
03.11.2009 | Author: kristin
I’ve been talking about Matt and Dave for a while now, so here’s the actual interview:
(KR) What inspires your song writing? Where do the concepts come from?
(Dave) Lately I’m writing songs people can connect to with less of an agenda. Things that activate on a human level… love, death, fun. Theme-wise that’s where I’m headed. TV Loves You Back I drew from really image heavy pop culture hilarious shit. I thought it was funny, but I think people took it too seriously
(KR) I HATED music theory and didn’t understand a minute of it… do you guys get into and/or study that type of thing or does this all come naturally?
(Dave/Matt) Neither one of us read music. Sometimes people go to school and develop disdain for something they once loved… unfortunately, it can become a technical educational pursuit.
(KR)Do you love all music or is there some you hate?
(Dave/Matt) Yeah, we like all music. It’s not my intention to isolate anyone ever or to say someone isn’t cool. I don’t play that game…. except for Kenny G.
(KR) Is fashion important in your lives? Favorite designers???
(Dave/Matt) I really like American Apparel. I wear tons of it. I like RVCA, too. Fashion should be visually entertaining… Matt rocks this terrible Christmas sweater sometimes.
(KR) Nice, I love that. You have some Aliases like Passage (Dave), Bomarr (Matt)…. Where do the these nick names come from?
(Dave/Matt) We initially wanted a traditional hip-hop vibe way back when we started making music. Bomarr is Matt’s pseudo last name and Passage is the idea that I was one little literary passage. One phrase of of a larger text.
(KR) Is there anything else you guys are working on at the moment?
(Dave/Matt) We’re working on a project called “TLDR”…Bat rays as well. Matt’s curated the sneakmove “minicomp vol 3″, which are a series of 7 inches that the label has been doing, featuring artists doing 1-minute songs. I’m working with a pop label out of Phoenix called Modern Art Records on a project called Brothers Backword. It’s Myself, Mike Busse and Ryan Breen who’s a part of this band called Back Ted n’ Ted. It’s kinda like Beastie Boys for the twenty first century. And We’re working with the producer from Inner Party System.
Source: BLEACH BLACK
Restiform Bodies "Black Friday" video
Posted 2/13/2009 1:19 PM by Faith-Ann Young
This video is dope. Directed by N.O. Bonzo, it echos some of the global economic insecurities, through animated little suited men whose heads are blown off and replaced with sea anemone-like strings (evidently that's what a restiform body is...). Meanwhile, little animated TVs, which multiply like rabbits, are juxtaposed with frenetic time-lapsed fuzzy clips of city streets (I'm thinking Oakland?) The track, appropriately called "Black Friday" is by Bay Area's electro hip hop outfit, Restiform Bodies (David Bryant-vocalist and song writer, Matt Valerio- percussionist and beat-maker & George Chadwick-synth, sample and effects slayer). Sound intense? It's actually quite hypnotic.
Source: RCRD LBL
"TVLYB" review [BPM Magazine]
27 Jan
Restiform Bodies
Staying Human Amidst the Chaos
Words by Chris Martins
“Sex and consumption are parts of my life,” notes Passage dryly. Is he boasting or lamenting? “I smoke and eat too much, money burns a hole in my pocket, and there is no such thing as too much sex.”
The answer’s still unclear, but fitting coming from the voice of Restiform Bodies. The Oakland-based trio—rounded out by producers Bomarr and Telephone Jim Jesus (each a solo artist in his own right)—have just released TV Loves You Back, an album of wild sonics (art, rap, pop, noise) that drips with neon-ugly imagery from the era of the overfed attention span. But the album isn’t so much the antithesis of your gossip girls and weekend vampires as it is the indifferent warning label glued to the corner of the pack.
“I’m as much an example of our culture as a critic,” Passage continues. “I live a very domestic little life—there’s no dumpster diving or bike culture in my repertoire, and I think peace marches in San Francisco are redundant.”
That said, Restiform’s third record is anything but a succumbing to the lull of complacence. To the contrary, the characters caught in its innards—mall shooters, QVC shoppers, video game kids, brand whores, cancer patients and the narrator himself—all seem to be caught up in the same struggle: trying to stay human amidst the chaos.
“I do believe consumerism is fucked and we should all walk to work and stop eating garbage,” he says, “but media-conglomerate-owned or not, genetically modified or big-box bought, made in China or here in the U.S. of A, death waits.”
Thus, we submit to you the chorus of “Consumer Culture Wave,” delivered on album in admirable deadpan: “Fuck like you mean it, Timmy.”
Source: BPM Magazine
"TVLYB" review [University Chronicle]
Indie hip-hop trio's 'TV Love' has bite
Joseph Froemming
Issue date: 2/2/09 Section: Intermission
Restiform Bodies have taken America's love of cheap, low brow entertainment and throw it back at the people.
Their latest release, "TV Loves You back," is a beat driven slap in the face of American crass commercialism.
The band, formed of Passage, Bomarr and Telephone Jim Jesus, are all alumni of the Midwest indie hip-hop explosion that first began in the late '90s with labels such as Rhymesayers, Anticon and Mush.
This release is their second, but their debut for the Anticon label.
The album takes the listener on a crazed, hip-hop mind bender with the slickest beats to emerge from Anticon's roster.
The album begins with "Black Friday," which sounds like it is a live album with crowd cheering and vocal echoes and musical tinkering.
The track is a strong indictment of the biggest shopping day in the U.S. Claiming to be distracted by " all mall vision," and how there is "no romance in a business trance," the track is a middle finger to the day after Thanksgiving.
The beats on "Black Friday" are impressive, and give the track an upbeat feeling, which contrasts well with the lyrical content.
"A Pimp Like God" is another great track. Passage begins the track with a catch chorus before jumping into a lyrical backhand to idiots who glorify pimping as a positive thing in our culture.
The song "Customer Culture Wave" begins with weird computer blip sounds that are reminiscent of Radiohead's "Kid A" material.
The lyrics are about how consumerism is destroying nature and a seething insight on self-image with the lyrics "F--k like you have a reputation to uphold."
Passage has a unique voice for hip-hop. It is nasally, but not annoying like Eminem. He switches from flowing to singing, as does Bomarr.
Telephone Jim Jesus does a good job with the production. He makes the breakdowns a psychedelic freak out for the ears.
The music sounds like the '80s were thrown into a blender, then spewed out with solid beats and insane bass lines. It is not as good as their contemporaries in Neon Neon, but good enough for this album.
It is good to hear a hip-hop release from Anticon. The past few years they have been going toward more rock influenced music, and this is the first good hip-hop album released from them since Pedestrian's 2004 release, "Unindian Songs: Vol. 1."
The album is not without faults. The smooth and slick production does get to be too much after six songs in. It all starts to sound like the same song is being played.
The lyrics are impressive; blending politics with surreal imagery works well. Yet, they are not ground breaking in any sense.
The album ends with "Ameriscan," a song about how keeping people in a state of fear is a cancer in our society.
The track starts with sad, mournful sounding electric organ with depressive sounding vocals. It sounds like an epitaph for the American Dream.
"TV Loves You Back" is a decent album, interesting in parts but does not take hip-hop into some new direction.
It is 10 tracks long and the tracks clock in at an average of two or three minutes. Yet, this album is better than a lot of hip-hop out there, especially in comparison to what is on mainstream radio.
Anticon followers have been given a good hip-hop album, though not great. Restiform Bodies are tight, but leaving the listener for more content and some grittier musical moments.
Source: University Chronicle
FURIOUS STYLZ
FURIOUS STYLZ is a highly dub influenced electro combo of Telephone Jim Jesus plus Skyrider (from the Sole & The Skyrider Band); it's a very furious sound as shown by the four tracks now playing on their MySpace page untitled: "opening sequence", "we are furious", "furious fuzz", "furious revenge".
"TVLYB" review [A.V. Club]
TV Loves You Back
A-
Chris Martins January 13, 2009
2008 was a disappointment for rap fans. What wasn't hipster-ready sneaker-hop or dance-craze incitement was more fodder from a mainstream that flirts with artsiness, but still can't deliver us from singles. Well, beneath all that blinding marquee glare, someone was shining a light. After a seven-year hiatus, deconstructionist rap trio Restiform Bodies returned with TV Loves You Back, an album benefiting from aural ADHD, with the thematic content to match. Over a score that whips ghettotech, crunk, and Gary Numan into an erratic frenzy, rapper Passage abstractly expounds upon shopping-mall shootings, restless-leg syndrome, market crashes, and—in the album's recurring theme—impotence caused by overdosing on television. The latter is a fairly direct half-metaphor for the effects the boob tube has on ambition, but the delivery makes this record more than a summation of Western postmillennial anxieties. Passage's verses are hailstorms of cyberized imagery and sarcastic poetry, while producers Bomarr and Telephone Jim Jesus skip art-hop subtlety for beats that bang. TV Loves You Back looks forward, and the view is empowering and a little disturbing. By the record's end, on an epic called "Opulent Soul," the narrator reclaims his masculinity: "I'm in the house of fractions before twinkling Oakland / hand-fucking myself into the great wide open." Finally, a dance craze everyone already know the moves to.
Source: A.V. Club
RE$TIFORM BOD1ES REM1X CONTE$T Honorable Mentions
Download MP3's below of some of our favorite contest submissions that were great, but didn't make the cut -Bomarr
- Ameriscan - dilly dilly remix » Listen/Download HERE
- Ameriscan - Otem Rellik remix » Listen/Download HERE
- Black Friday - Cars & Trains remix » Listen/Download HERE
- Bobby Trendy Addendum - Malicious Pig remix » Listen/Download HERE
- Bobby Trendy Addendum - Copper White remix » Listen/Download HERE
- Bobby Trendy Addendum - Renga remix » Listen/Download HERE
- Foul - Tom Inhaler remix » Listen/Download HERE
- Panic Shopper - Seth Schwartz remix » Listen/Download HERE
- Pick It Up, Drop it - Awkward remix » Listen/Download HERE
For the other remixes they can be listened to @ 8tracks or below:
» Restiform Bodies remix contest @ anticon.
» Contest @ MySpace
RE$TIFORM BOD1ES REM1X CONTE$T Winners
The winners of the RE$TIFORM BOD1ES REM1X CONTE$T have been announced and they are: Brian E with his remix of "Foul" and Rx who remixed "Consumer Culture Wave".We'll be posting up MP3's of all our favorite runners-up within the next day.
Thanks again to all the contributors. -Bomarr
"TVLYB" in the top 10 of best 2008 albums [Indie Rock Mag]
1 Flying Lotus : Los Angeles
2 cirKus : Laylower
3 Leila : Blood, Looms & Blooms
4 Autechre : Quaristice
5 Beck : Modern Guilt
6 Deschannel : They Know Nothing, They Recite !
7 Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words : Lost In Reflections
8 Baltic Fleet : Baltic Fleet
9 Parkside : Cables
10 Restiform Bodies : TV Loves You Back
Source: Indie Rock Mag
