Recordings

Bou Lega – How the Mud Sings

Posted on by Jon

Bou Lega – How the Mud Sings

boulega.bandcamp.com

Sometime in the last few years, my good friend Steve (bassist of Julius Caesar/Caesar Augustus, guitarist of Therewolf, co-drummer of LeBaron) sent me some tracks he’d been working on. His idea was to make an aggressive rock band entirely with keys, with a particular focus on using a Fender Rhodes to emulate the sound of distorted guitar. I really liked the direction. In 2023, we were hanging out in Las Vegas as part of an online music community meetup. While sitting in a casino eating sandwiches, Steve asked if I’d be interested in singing on those tracks. I said, “Hell yeah brother,” and the die was cast. I told him I was focused on finishing the Bird Surgeon Good Times remake, and that once I wrapped that up, I’d jump on these songs.

Both projects ended up delayed as my ulcerative colitis was progressively getting worse. The illness was taking more and more of a toll, and for a while I wasn’t sure when I’d have the energy to make music again. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, things eventually got bad enough that I was hospitalized for weeks. In the end, that turned out to be a blessing, because it finally led to me getting stabilized on a medication that works. My health gradually turned around and I got back to business. Over time I had much more energy, along with a sense of lightness I hadn’t even realized I’d lost. This project became a marker of that shift, the moment where a more playful part of myself came back to life.

I had a lot of fun recording the vocals. I’d been itching to sing again ever since working on the most recent [syzygy] album, and this became the first official release to feature my sung vocals since then. (The upcoming Bird Surgeon album also has sung vocals, and was recorded first, but that’s not out yet.) I feel like I’ve finally landed in a place where I know what I’m supposed to do with my voice, and I’m genuinely happy with how it sounds. For inspiration I leaned on three main sources: Mike Patton of Mr. Bungle, Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta, and Buddy Hale (vocalist of Phantom Float and Destiny Theft). What I admire about all three is their playfulness and their willingness to fold wildly different vocal approaches into a single work. They’re always trying things out, no matter how far on the fringe, and they clearly have a lot of fun. That’s the spirit I wanted to bring here.

The name Bou Lega (a play on Lou Bega) comes from our local scene back in high school. I have no idea who first suggested it, but it got floated as a band name countless times. Midway through our collaboration, Steve asked what I thought about finally picking up that mantle. I was down.

Steve’s already working on new material, so there will definitely be more Bou Lega in the future. I’m looking forward to continuing the weirdness.

Thanks to Jack Shirley of The Atomic Garden for his mastering work on this EP.

Thanks to adsm (vocalist of Therewolf/the Mudman himself) at Below, Inc. for the album art.

Tapes available through Big Name Records or the Bandcamp. BNR2502

Gapless w/ Lyrics on YouTube:

Stream or Download/Purchase (name-your-price) on Bandcamp:

Caesar Augustus – The Ides of March

Posted on by Jon

Caesar Augustus – The Ides of March

caesaraugustus.bandcamp.com

The Ides of March traces its origins back to 2016, when my band Julius Caesar was still active. We started the band in high school and had been together for a decade, doing sporadic runs of shows. In 2016, most of us lived in Olympia, WA, and the band was performing regularly. One night, while I was on tour with my other band A God or an Other, Julius Caesar’s guitarist Gavin vanished, not to be heard from for many years. We were pretty bummed.

Once I got home from tour I picked up my guitar and wrote these songs – they appeared nearly fully formed. They were clearly influenced by Julius Caesar but had their own distinct style. Capturing and transcribing them was a cathartic experience. For a few months I attempted to find other musicians to form a new band that would play this material. Eventually I realized that between the very busy schedules of A God or an Other and the other band I was in at the time, The Lunch, I just didn’t have the time or energy to make a third band happen.

When my wife and I decided to move to Colorado to start our family in 2018, I was worried that I might not be able to record loud music in my new home as freely as I had been able to in Olympia. So before we moved, I decided to record drums for a few loud projects that had been on the backburner, just in case. This was one of them (along with 2023’s Therewolf).

The Ides of March sat in a drums-only state until mid-pandemic, when I finally recorded the guitar parts. Originally, it was intended to be a solo release, but when I started thinking about vocals, I found that I had a creative block. It reminded me a lot of when I was working on Destiny Theft – with that EP, every time I listened to the instrumentals, I imagined Buddy Hale’s voice. This time, though, it was JC vocalist (and 55YT MQRT guitarist) Neal’s voice I was hearing. So I eventually asked Neal if he wanted to do lead vocals for the EP. I was thrilled when he agreed. It still needed bass, so we then invited JC bassist Steve to fill that role.

We recorded vocals over the next few years. Neal, who now lives in Iowa, would visit about every six months to track some of his parts. Meanwhile, Steve recorded his bass contributions remotely in California. I think this part of our ‘about-the-band’ blurb satisfactorily sums up the thematic focus our lyrics took on:

Caesar Augustus is a reckoning with the oppressive forces of modern society and the relentless difficulty of the human condition... Their debut EP, “The Ides of March,” serves as a commemoration of their past and a herald of new beginnings. It is a rallying cry against fascism and authoritarianism and a scathing critique of our broken political system. Additionally, Caesar Augustus takes on the invisible demons that haunt the modern psyche, grappling with conditions such as ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and depression, laying bare the complexities of existence in a world rife with chaos and uncertainty.

“The Ides of March” is a reflection on the past, a confrontation with the present, and a contemplation of the unknown realms of the future. It is a testament to resilience, friendship, and the unwavering pursuit of artistic expression in the face of existential dread.

This project is obviously closely tied to Julius Caesar, but without Gavin, it’s a different entity. Because of the connection between the projects and the timeline, we decided to name it after JC’s successor: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. We titled the release after the pivotal day that marked the transition between the two dictators. And really, what better day to put it out than the Ides of March itself?

Album art by TJ Giovannio. Band logo by Nathan Kwon.

Tapes available via Fiadh Productions.

https://fiadh.bandcamp.com/album/the-ides-of-march

We also have a large variety of shirt options on our Bandcamp!

https://caesaraugustus.bandcamp.com/merch

Full EP Gapless with Lyrics

Music Video for Knives In (The Ides of March)

Stream or Download/Purchase on Bandcamp:

55YT MQRT – Self Titled

Posted on by Jon

55YT MQRT – Self Titled

55ytmqrt.bandcamp.com

55YT MQRT was formed in Redwood City, CA way back in 2006. At that point in time, my friend Neal Jensen and I were high schoolers deep diving into the world of psychedelic and progressive rock, our favorites being The Mars Volta, Pink Floyd, and King Crimson. We had just left our post-hardcore outfit Ending Reason and we very much wanted to explore some more experimental sonic territory ourselves.

We originally formed under the name Hellships. For reasons unknown to me now, we ended up dropping that name and instead chose to go by 55YT MQRT. Something about progressive rock that has always made us laugh is how often people complain that bands within the genre are “pretentious,” so we chose a name that we found maximally pretentious as a way to poke fun at the people who make such complaints. (Neal later ended up properly forming Hellships in Olympia, WA with Robin Flowers and Alex Freilich. I produced their two studio albums, Leaden Hum and Doom Organs in 2012 and 2015 respectively. I consider Hellships and 55YT MQRT to be sibling projects… Hellships is a bit more of an unhinged and “off the grid” fellow, whereas 55YT MQRT is an equally strange individual who somehow manages to hold down an office job.)

We developed the band’s compositional approach in the early days. We would do long improv sessions that were then edited down in Pro Tools into seamless songs. From there we would add elements, cut parts, and rearrange things until the songs felt complete. We released our early tracks on MySpace.

Within a year of forming the band, Neal moved to Olympia, leaving our project with an uncertain future. In 2010 I ended up deciding to move there as well. We became roommates and revived 55YT. We assembled an untitled album consisting mostly of ambient noise tracks. When we moved from our apartment into a house where we could make loud music, we started properly practicing again. Over the next roughly 4 years we would occasionally work on 55YT material, but during that time we did not properly record anything due to focusing on other projects (Hellships, A God or an Other, Bird Surgeon, The Lunch).

Neal eventually decided to move to Montana to pursue a master’s degree, and again this left the band with an unknown future. In January 2016, before he left, we decided to properly document what we had been working on, again following the edited improv approach of our early works. We quickly had solid recorded versions of our songs that represented what we had been doing live during that time: Neal playing a single guitar accompanied by myself on the drums. The lone overdub was bass for fullness. Neal then left for Montana. This version sounded complete to me, but not to Neal. He wanted to overdub some additional parts he had been imagining.

He came to visit Olympia and we recorded his extra ideas. Now that there were additional elements on certain scattered parts, the parts with no overdubs sounded empty to me! And thus, a nearly 8 year process began. Parts were added and edits were made in short bursts, usually when Neal would come to visit for a few days here and there. Sometimes the session sat for literally years without being opened. Finally, in November 2023… we knew it was complete.

It shocks me when I think of how different my personal world and even the world in general was when we began working on this album. I was pursuing music full time living in Washington state. Donald Trump was just beginning his first run and the idea of him becoming president was ludicrous. Since then, I moved halfway across the country, had a son and a daughter, worked as a cable technician for 4 years, and made my jump into software development as a career. And the whole pandemic thing happened.

This is my longest-running recording project to date. I don’t know how many people will connect with this album but this is one of my personal favorite releases I’ve ever put out. We had been envisioning creating something like this since high school. The vision is finally fulfilled.

Over the last couple of years Neal has regularly been coming from Iowa, where he currently resides, to visit our family in Colorado. During those visits we have been recording new tracks which will be the basis for the next 55YT MQRT album. If the pattern holds, we’ll release the next album somewhere around 2031. We’ll see!

Album art by Garrett Botkins.

Tapes available through Big Name Records or the Bandcamp. BNR2400

Gapless w/ Lyrics on YouTube:

Stream or Download/Purchase (name-your-price) on Bandcamp:

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros

Posted on by Jon

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – The Fractal Ouroboros

bullofapisbullofbronze.bandcamp.com

Today marks the official release of our album The Fractal Ouroboros. It was a massive undertaking. We began recording nearly four years ago, early in the awful year of 2020. The process was slow and painstaking, continually interrupted by the realities of our lives and the reality of living through the pandemic. The isolation and subtle terror of those times deeply informed the final piece, but so did hope. Hope for a better immediate future, as well as hope for a longer term reality where humans are kinder to one another, and where our culture overcomes feeble tendencies like racism, sexism, and homophobia. I am proud of this creation and have been quite pleased to see the reception to it so far. It means a lot to me that it has been finding its way to people with whom it resonates.

I played the drums and mixed and mastered the album. It is being released digitally, on cassette, and on double LP vinyl via Fiadh Productions in the US and Vita Detestabilis in Europe.

Double LP / Cassette (US) – Fiadh Productions Bandcamp

Double LP / Cassette (Europe) – Vita Detestabilis Bandcamp

Digital / 3 Shirt Designs / BOABOB Tea (Worldwide) – Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze Bandcamp

MoshPitNation Premiere: Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – Annihilation (Plus Comprehensive Review and Band Interview)

Posted on by Jon

EXCLUSIVE TRACK STREAM: Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – Annihilation

Annihilation is the second track to be presented to the world from “The Fractal Ouroboros.” Suffocate O Earthen Lungs; They Now Lungs of Ash was released as a stand alone single on the summer solstice, and is a driving monster of a track. Annihilation patiently builds, spending over six minutes in the process of constructing the mood necessary for the moment of annihilation which comes when the composition explodes into furious oblivion. The build is a wondrous, ambient deconstruction of conscious thought, leading to a deep seated sense of nothingness, a preparation for what is to come. Approach this track with reverence. Let the ambience warm you. Float in it. Let the plucked notes pluck at your subconscious. Allow the whispered rasps to float alongside you. Allow the rhythms to pick you up and carry you towards finality. Allow the annihilation. And then…

Full article here.

Hayduke X of MoshPitNation was kind enough to take the time to interview us and put together a full track-by-track review of our upcoming album The Fractal Ouroboros. The article also serves as the premiere of the album’s second single “Annihilation,” as well as the reveal of the cover art, full track listing, and release date (December 21, 2023 – Double LP Vinyl, Cassette, and Digital on Fiadh Productions in the US & Vita Detestabilis in Europe).

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – Suffocate O Earthen Lungs; They Now Lungs of Ash

Posted on by Jon

Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze – Suffocate O Earthen Lungs; They Now Lungs of Ash

bullofapisbullofbronze.bandcamp.com

An excerpt from The Fractal Ouroboros, the second call to action by Bull of Apis Bull of Bronze. Over three years in the making, The Fractal Ouroboros is the embodiment of grief, catharsis, and empowerment. It shall be unleashed in time, but for now we offer this piece, "Suffocate O Earthen Lungs; They Now Lungs of Ash", on the Summer Solstice--this day marking 4 years since Offerings of Flesh and Gold was released. Much has changed in these 4 years, but our statements have not. Our hopes have not.

Towards a better world.
This cycle shall be destroyed,
Achaierai // Athshean // Yaeth

This is the first single from our upcoming double LP The Fractal Ouroboros. The album is a beast, clocking in at 74 minutes. Creating it was a lengthy process and I am very pleased to finally be putting a portion of it out into the world. I played drums and mixed and mastered the record.

The full album release date is currently TBD. The vinyl will be out on Fiadh Productions in the US and Vita Detestabilis in Europe.