New BLOODYMINDED "Essential Humanity" Single

"Essential Humanity" is now available to download and stream via all major digital platforms, including Bandcamp, iTunes, Google, Amazon, Spotify, etc. The four-song single contains the baleful, rhythmically based track, taken from the band's new album, along with live versions of three album tracks, which were recorded at their May 2019 record release show at Sleeping Village in Chicago.

New BLOODYMINDED Album Out Today

New BLOODYMINDED single out now!

In advance of our forthcoming album, which will be released on May 31, our new single is out now via Bandcamp (https://bloodyminded.bandcamp.com/album/bloodyminded-2), iTunes (https://apple.co/2GLG7tg), Spotify (https://spoti.fi/2GSyykv), etc.

BLOODYMINDED "True Crime" Remaster out now

BLOODYMINDED "True Crime" Remaster

http://bloodshop.bigcartel.com/product/b-040-bloodyminded-true-crime-cd-re-issue

2017 re-issue in 8-panel digipak

BloodLust! is very pleased to announce the re-issue of the previously out-of-print second full-length from BLOODYMINDED. Originally released in 2002, True Crime was conceived as an urgent follow-up to the band’s debut CD, Trophy (1995), and it was intended as a final word on true crime and serial killers, themes within the power-electronics and post-industrial scene that seemed to have little left to offer. Song titles and lyrics were drawn from noteworthy true crime books read by BLOODYMINDED front man Mark Solotroff. Things don’t always go as planned, and the intended short gap between albums widened when the band relocated from New York to Chicago, as ideas about guest contributors slowly expanded, and as a period of inactivity set in.

For this recording BLOODYMINDED was Megan Emish, Ed Knigge, Steve Marvin, Pieter Schoolwerth and Mark Solotroff, with a number of special guests. P.NG5361.B (Sshe Retina Stimulants/Sigillum S) and Akifumi Nakajima (Aube) both contributed analog synth tracks to multiple songs, adding to the deep layers of synth and bass frequencies that are at the foundation of each selection. Guest vocals were recorded by John Balistreri (Slogun), Andrea Chiaravalli (Iugula-Thor), Jonathan Canady (Angel of Decay/Deathpile/Dead World), and Xavier Laradji (Timeless). Following the release of True Crime, Laradji would go on to become a permanent member of the band.

After failing to capture the low-end sound they wanted on the raw and stripped-down Trophy, despite working at a renowned Brooklyn dub studio, the band sought a Chicago studio and engineer known for bass-heavy house music. True Crime was recorded in multiple stages, first by Mark Solotroff at Brooklyn Electrical, Brooklyn, 1997, and then by Jack Letourneau and Tomas Ford, with Mark Solotroff, at Satellite Studios, Chicago, during 1997 and 1998. Additional contributions were recorded in various locations in Italy, Japan and the USA. The album was mixed by Jack Letourneau, with Mark Solotroff and Ed Knigge, at Satellite Studios, in 1998 and it was initially mastered by Chris Greene, at Alien Soundscapes, Inc., Chicago, during 1999 and 2000. The following two years were relatively quiet for BLOODYMINDED, prior to releasing this album and increasing the frequency of live performances.

For this re-release, graphic designer Daniel Regueira worked with the original creative concept, based on autumn leaves, overhauling the design to better align with the digipak format. Restrained re-mastering was completed by Collin Jordan, at his Chicago studio, The Boiler Room, in late 2016. Full-color, 8-panel digipak, in shrink-wrap.

Track listing: 
1. Angel Of Darkness (6:00) 
2. The Killer Department (6:10) 
3. Blind Fury (6:25) 
4. 29 Below (6:31) 
5. Deadly Thrills (6:10) 
6. Bound To Die (6:11) 
7. Rites Of Burial (6:06) 
8. The Misbegotten Son (4:51) 
9. The Killer Next Door (5:34) 
10. St. Joseph's Children (6:13)

B!182 BLOODYMINDED "The Struggle Of Togetherness" CD

OUT NOW
 


B!182 BLOODYMINDED "The Struggle Of Togetherness" CD
 
Order here: http://bloodshop.bigcartel.com/product/b-182-bloodyminded-the-struggle-of-togetherness-cd

$10.00 + postage

- Limited edition of 100 copies

- Professionally duplicated CD with single panel, double-sided insert, featuring color artwork; in jewel box with shrinkwrap (similar to the two live in Boston CDs)
 
- Embroidered Patch (5" x 1" - 100% embroidery coverage - red thread on black background - iron-on backing)


- Sticker (4.25" x 4.25" - black and white)

BLOODYMINDED 4/24 Live Video

With thanks to blauphus2

The Struggle of Togetherness

Our thanks to everyone who came out to see the historic BLOODYMINDED show last week, marking the first time that all six current members have played live together. Photos from the show and from our days at Decade Music Studios with Sanford Parker are being posted to Facebook.

BLOODYMINDED - Live - April 24, 2016 - The Empty Bottle - Chicago

BLOODYMINDED are happy to announce that we are booked to play on Sunday April 24 at The Empty Bottle, with Sunwatchers and one additional act to be announced shortly. This show was organized to coincide with recording dates for our next album and it will mark the first time that all six current band members - Xavier Laradji, Will Lindsay, James Moy, Isidro Reyes, Pieter Schoolwerth and Mark Solotroff - will appear together on stage.

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/982207618541800/
Ticket link: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?eventId=6568835&pl=eb&dispatch=loadSelectionData

BLOODYMINDED article in Zero Tolerance

Thanks to Jack Chuter for conducting the interview that led to this piece for the new issue of Zero Tolerance!

Obskure Magazine (France) on BLOODYMINDED "Within The Walls"

Thanks to Xavier for sending!

English Version of The New Noise Interview with Mark Solotroff

The original Italian version can be found here:
http://www.thenewnoise.it/bloodyminded-mark-solotroff/

You have many musical projects, you play live, you are very active. And you started this thirty years ago. I admire artists like you, because you operate constantly in the underground, and without hesitations. What makes you so strong? What gives you energy?

Thank you!  I cannot imagine a life in which I do not create music, whether it is closer to industrial culture, with BLOODYMINDED, or more in the metal or post-punk realm, as with my band Anatomy of Habit.  That said, it is not always easy to continue doing this, so deep in the underground, and sometimes it becomes quite fatiguing.  The urge to create remains very strong inside of me and I love the live performance aspect too much to walk away from this.

You’re from United States, but you have created a bridge between two continents… and there was no internet at the time. Please, tell my Italian readers something about your contacts with early industrial Italian pioneers and how they influenced you.

I started listening to industrial, experimental, noise, or what have you, towards the end of my high school years.  Then, while I was in college, I became friends with Peter Sotos.  After starting Intrinsic Action and recording our first cassette, Pete gave me a list of people to contact in various European countries and in Japan.  And yes, we all wrote letters back then.  It was many years before we had access to email.  I started corresponding with Andrea Cernotto from The Sodality, first to order Mauthausen Orchestra and other cassettes from his Aquilifer Sodality catalog.  A few years later, while spending a summer in Venice, I traveled to Milan to meet Andrea, and I also met Paolo Bandera of Sigillum S (and later Sshe Retina Stimulants).  This all set in motion making many great friends in the Milan area, and, much through Paolo’s efforts and support, me releasing music by many great Italian Artists, starting with Sigillum S, continuing to Iugula-Thor, Sshe Retina Stimulants, The Sodality, Mauthausen Orchestra, Atrax Morgue, Dead Body Love, Murder Corporation.  And nearly 30 years later, Paolo just left Chicago a week ago, after a nice visit, and I will be traveling to Rome in a few weeks to perform with The Sodality, at the Destination Morgue festival.  M.B. and Mauthausen Orchestra were among the earliest underground “power-electronics” artists I heard, along with Whitehouse, Consumer Electronics, Sutcliffe Jugend and Ramleh, and for some reason, something about the Italian style really clicked with me, even though these artists and groups represent a wide range of styles.  I love Italy so much and I have great friends there, so I have returned several times.

Bloodyminded are Xavier Laradji, James Moy, Isidro Reyes, Pieter Schoolwerth and you. It’s not unusual to see collective projects in your genre, but we also have many and many (and many) “one man bands”. How do you work on a single track? Is everyone adding his sounds? Is someone driving the whole creative process?

BLOODYMINDED is certainly a band, made up of very good friends who also really enjoy working on music together.  On some recordings and at some shows, we have been lucky enough to all be together, but as we are spread out in different US cities and with Xavier in France, being a band can be challenging.  Sometimes Xavier sends recordings from France, sometimes Pieter has been unable to travel to Chicago due to commitments with his art career, so we find ways to work around that.  Sometimes we incorporate field recordings made together, or we work with live recordings, or we share computer files.  I would say that at the beginning, I was driving and controlling the creative process, but now there is much more true collaboration, which is one of the things I appreciate most about our new album, “Within The Walls.”  

In Within The Walls you worked with Sanford Parker. I’ve listened to part of his work both as musician and as producer. He seems to me too clean and too rational for a visceral band like yours. But this is just my opinion. I would like to know what has convinced you to collaborate with him.

I have known Sanford for several years and I have a great appreciation for his production style.  We have also collaborated in the group Wrekmeister Harmonies over the last two years.  I first became aware of his work with the heavy doom of Buried At Sea, which I would definitely not characterize as “clean.”  I have numerous records that he has made and I think Sanford is great at balancing dark, dense and heavy sounds with a clear production that allows the musicians to deliver everything they want and for the listener to be able to receive everything that the musicians intended.  He had asked about recording BLOODYMINDED a few years ago and the timing was finally right.  I can say that it was a very enjoyable and easy experience.  Sanford is great to work with and I have since returned to the studio with him, for the new record by my band Anatomy of Habit.

You start your new album with an ambient track. It’s a very good track, created with the help of David Reed (Luasa Raelon). It makes this album deeper, it prepares my mind for what’s next, switching off the light, so to speak. Why is it entitled “All The Cities Are Occupied”?

David is part of the extended BLOODYMINDED family and he has played synth live with us many times.  We have toured together and have collaborated in the synth trio, Nightmares, with Jonathan Canady (Angel of Decay, Deathpile).  It is so nice to have him on this album.  The title of the opening track came from some sort of sleep-deprived hallucinatory conspiracy among the members of  BLOODYMINDED, and was initially  inspired by the very rare minimal synth artist ADN' Ckrystall.

We have also five very short tracks (Token number…). I don’t consider them as an “entr’acte”, it seems like your version of grindcore. Why did you put these tokens between the tracks?

They are exactly like our version of grindcore, so thank you for that observation.  I do not mind them being thought of as “pauses,” as they create contrast in our music, but they are considered fully realized songs.  I started playing around with that type of “blast” song towards the end of my old band, Intrinsic Action, and from the beginning of BLOODYMINDED, we have incorporated short, sharp tracks in our live shows and our recordings.  We have played with many punk and grindcore bands and I feel that aesthetic has been as much an influence on us as noise/electronics.  The “Token” titles are a reference to the offshoot band that Isidro and I started, The Fortieth Day, and this new album has a deep connection to themes that Isidro and I have been working on for several years.

I have Territories by Locrian: I remember clearly your performance in “Inverted Ruins”. It’s not easy to remember a specific vocal performance in extreme music. Why did you decide to publish your version of “Inverted Ruins” here?

Isidro and I had already started writing “Within The Walls” when I collaborated with Locrian on their “Territories” album and I sensed a strong connection between what we were writing and what Terence Hannum had written for “Inverted Ruins.”  I wanted to end this record with a song that changed the mood from the more assaultive songs to something that allowed for closure or resolve, and this seemed like the ideal way to do it.

Why do you have English and Spanish lyrics? From my European point of view, it seems to me a way to recognize how many Americans are “hispanohablantes” and a way to communicate with everyone, because the Spanish version is very close to the English version (and it helps me to understand some meanings of it)…

BLOODYMINDED is a multilingual band, with Xavier being a native French speaker and Isidro being a native Spanish speaker, as he comes from Mexico.  We first took this approach on “Gift Givers,” and since Isidro and I fully collaborated on the lyrics for “Within The Walls,” we felt this was the best approach.  I particularly enjoy how our voices all work in contrast – the different ranges that James, Isidro and I have - and how the different languages create another type of contrast.  Living in Chicago, one hears a great deal of Spanish, and I first started incorporating elements of this culture into my music with Intrinsic Action, embedding pieces of Flamenco music into our early live shows, as I was attracted to the arrogance, the romance and the darkness of that music genre.  Although I am a slow learner, the Spanish language is a big part of my life, partly due to my long and very close relationship with Isidro and his family, and now certainly due to the fact that my wife is from Mexico.

I’ve seen videos of your concerts. I noticed that often there are no barriers between Bloodyminded and the audience. This is normal if you are into power electronics/industrial/noise. And this is normal if you are into hardcore, but in the first case I feel uncomfortable. Are you at ease in these situations? And have you ever been afraid of these situations?

Yes, playing “on the floor” has been a big part of the BLOODYMINDED experience over the years.  Probably half of our shows have been WITH the audience, rather than on a stage.  The two types of performances are drastically different.  When we play at floor level, at shows with many excited intense fans who know all of our lyrics, there is an energy that simply cannot be matched.  I think that we have to work much harder when we are on stage, specifically because of that distance.  That said, “floor” shows are very unpredictable and I have suffered several broken bones because they can be so physical and violent – even though, at the same time, they can be exhilarating and joyful shows for both the band and the audience.  I think it is rare to see so many enthusiastic people smiling at noise or dark industrial shows, and that is one reason I love playing live with BLOODYMINDED.  But yes, sometimes, when we are about to start our show, I turn around towards the audience and discover they are only inches away, and I think, “Oh god, here we go…”

Finally: are you inside or outside the gate?

Chicago is suffering through an unusually cold December so right now I am comfortably within the walls.  But having finally released our new album, after many delays, I am happy to report that I have made my way outside the gate!

B!176 BLOODYMINDED "Within The Walls" CD

Webstore: http://bloodshop.bigcartel.com/product/b-176-bloodyminded-within-the-walls-cd
Bandcamp: http://bloodyminded.bandcamp.com/album/within-the-walls
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gw/album/within-the-walls/id725557901

BLOODYMINDED
“Within The Walls”
BloodLust! (B!176)
Compact Disc in 8-Panel Digipak



BLOODYMINDED is a heavy electronic band that was formed in New York, in 1995, after the dissolution of the early American industrial noise group Intrinsic Action, founded by Mark Solotroff in 1984. The group’s live shows are extremely energetic, characterized by layers of screeching analog synthesizer, aggressive vocals, and a copious amount of feedback. While BLOODYMINDED operate within the noise scene, their sound is broadly informed by their industrial forbearers, NYC pre-punk and noise rock, and British hardcore and grindcore. BLOODYMINDED has performed with diverse artists covering noise, power-electronics, experimental, avant-garde, death-rock, industrial, hardcore, metal and punk. Although currently based in Chicago, members also live in Brooklyn, New York, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Toulouse, France.

“Within The Walls” is the band’s fifth full-length studio recording and the first to be issued since their 2006 album, “Magnetism.” Numerous false starts led to the band entering the studio with acclaimed doom metal producer, Sanford Parker, to finally commit the new set of songs to tape (no, computer). The album is based on the concept of “love and loss in a time of great sadness,” and it follows themes established by members Isidro Reyes and Mark Solotroff in their offshoot band, The Fortieth Day. Reyes and Solotroff closely collaborated on the lyrics, working in both Spanish and English. Released on LP, CD and digital, this marks the first BLOODYMINDED full-length on vinyl. In addition to basic black, a special edition of 100 copies will be released on white vinyl, with a silk screen print based on the front cover artwork, printed by Erin Page of Kill Hatsumomo Prints.

Along with core members Xavier Laradji, James Moy, Isidro Reyes, Pieter Schoolwerth and Mark Solotroff, select guest musicians were drafted to assist with the album. Longstanding BLOODYMINDED family member, David Reed (Envenomist, Luasa Raelon), who has played live with the band on numerous occasions, was brought in to create an atmospheric opener for the album. He was aided by Blake Edwards (Vertonen), Solotroff’s ex-band mate in Anatomy of Habit and Animal Law. Edwards created a collection of metal-on-metal textures that add to the disquieting feel of “All The Cities Are Occupied.” Along with co-producing, Sanford Parker played lead synthesizer on the album closer, “Inverted Ruins,” a remake of the Locrian song – which Solotroff originally sang on – from that group’s 2010 album, “Territories.” Edwards reprised his dark metallic drones for the uncharacteristically melodic song. What happens in between those two songs is a bombastic, high-fidelity assault of electronic noise, screams, feedback and purgation.

During the long gap between albums, the members of BLOODYMINDED were hardly idle. Laradji stepped up his role as a publisher, releasing increasingly lavish editions of art and negative-culture books under the Timeless banner. Moy established his reputation as a true death-industrial force, with solo work under the charming Anal Hearse moniker. Reyes remained exceptionally busy, performing live and releasing over a dozen full-length albums with The Fortieth Day, and in 2012, he released his first solo work through the esteemed Mexican label, Ruido Horrible. Based in Brooklyn, Schoolwerth continues his successful painting career, and until early 2013, he helmed Wierd Records, releasing numerous acclaimed recordings of minimal-synth, cold wave and challenging electronic music. His weekly parties under the Wierd name brought hundreds of dark music artists to eager, debauched, late-night audiences in NYC. Solotroff worked closely with Reyes in The Fortieth Day and he recorded and toured in the synth trio Nightmares (with David Reed and Jonathan Canady), while also joining the doom band Animal Law and later co-founding the group Anatomy of Habit. He has made guest appearances, live and/or recorded, with Alma Negra, The Atlas Moth, Brutal Truth, Consumer Electronics, Indian, Locrian, Rabid Rabbit, etc. Although his solo microphone-feedback performances have become infrequent, he has also been recording and performing with Thrill Jockey artists Wrekmeister Harmonies, since late-2011. Solotroff continues to oversee the noise, synth and metal label, BloodLust!, which he founded in 1994.

Track Listing:
01. “All The Cities Are Occupied” (9:06)
02. “Within The Walls” (2:16)
03. “Night Strikes” (5:13)
04. “Token 3” (0:58)
05. “Disintegration” (6:26)
06. “Token 4” (0:34)
07. “Fatal Breath” (6:27)
08. “Token 5” (1:18)
09. “Circular Relations” (3:36)
10. “Token 6” (1:06)
11. “Token 7” (0:08)
12. “Outside The Gate” (3:03)
13. “Inverted Ruins” (6:49)

Timeless Update

The Timeless webstore has a lot of interesting new additions, aside from the four excellent new Timeless hardcover editions previously mentioned...including a Japanese publication on Gaspar Noé's incredible move, Seul Contra Tous: