Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet profile picture

Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet

heavy chamber music & resonant dementia

About Me

The world's only composing group of four bass clarinetists, Edmund Welles are purveyors of Heavy Chamber Music. Combining equal parts from jazz, classical, and rock, guided by the deep sonority and expressive range of the bass clarinet. Muzak for conspiracy theorists, songs of Lunacy & Purpose. Neo-gothic subterranean pseudo-new music and de-jazzed riff rock. This kind of "style" list can be challenging (i.e annoying) to read, I know, but the sound of this group is, as objectively as possible, very hard to describe using conventional terms and genres.
It's a lot of bass clarinet, it's heavy and driving, dense yet accessible.
The debut album, Agrippa's 3 Books, was released in August 2005. A3B was inspired by occult philosophy and heavy metal music; the sound production was done by sound alchemist Oz Fritz (Bill Laswell, Tom Waits, Primus) and the deluxe packaging was done by Theresa Wong (graphic designer, [s]avant cellist, amplified bicycle performer). The new album is out now and it has 12 originals on it, assisted in the audio by Myles Boisen and with the paintings on the covers by Chako Chan.
-- CDBABY LINK for EDMUND WELLES: Agrippa's 3 Books --
CD Baby says:"Never have you heard the clarinet take on so much attitude, so much angst, so much personality. Mixing in styles and approaches from contemporary classical writing to jazz to just good old rock 'n roll licks, Edmund Welles's album, "Agrippa's 3 Books," wins the award for capturing the most imagination and making the most out of one instrument family. Just listen."
------- CDBABY LINK for EDMUND WELLES: Tooth & Claw---
contact us for your own "Medically Accurate Respiration" T-shirt. [email protected]
While our band website is being redone by Clint Thorne , take some time off and float

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 5/12/2005
Band Website: edmundwelles.com
Band Members: Cornelius Boots, Aaron Novik, Jonathan Russell, Jeff Anderle
Influences: Melt-Banana---Tool---Laurie Anderson---John Cage---David Lynch---Ed Wood---the Borneo Horns---Jimmy Scott---Emperor---Fishbone---Miles Davis---Eric Dolphy---Pink Floyd---Eddie Harris---Wendy Carlos---Primus---Spinal Tap---Andy Kaufmann---Black Sabbath---Journey---Sepultura---Tom Waits---Praxis---Syd Barrett---Cream, Pearl Jam, Pearl Bailey, Bailey's Irish Cream---Steve Reich---Bethlehem---James Brown---Sly---Beethoven---The Pixies---Fats Waller---Ian Anderson, Ian Underwood & Uncle Meat, plus Don Van Vliet---Angelo Badalamenti---Bernard Herrman---Screamin Jay Hawkins---Kwai Chang Caine---Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel---Josquin de Prez---David Bowie---Mork & Mindy---Bruce Lee---Chaka Khan---Attila---Bill Shatner---Stevie Wonder---Shaolin Kung Fu---Rasputin---Rasputina---Quetzalcoatl---Yoshinobu Taniguchi & Michael Chikuzen Gould---Sanchez Brothers---RL Burnside & Junior Kimbrough---magnesium & Faun Tumnus
Sounds Like: Black Sabbath, Howlin Wolf, Wendy Carlos, and Roger Waters on four bass clarinets (this means 5 octaves on a big reed) heavy riffs, precision, vibrational combinatoriality. The Law of Octaves will be satisfied.
Record Label: zeroth law
Type of Label: None

My Blog

Humans are Dead

If the robots survive the polar ice cap meltdown/rabid weather changes after we are done with our dastardly deeds, then this song will be oh so true, and so funny, and so sad all at the same time. ...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:56:00 PST

DIO weighs in on Americans and their preferences

...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:59:00 PST

2012: A Requiem for Baktun 12, the 13th and Final Cycle

Greetings one and all.Edmund Welles will be premiering its new long piece (23 minutes or so) among other artists, dancers and various varieties of performance excursions next week at Yerba Buena Cente...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:31:00 PST

Everybody Talks about Evil Like They Know What They Are Saying

"Our attitude towards evil must be free from hatred, and has itself need to be enlightened in character....Satan rejoices when he suceeds in inspiring us with diabolical feelings to himself. It is he...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Fri, 10 Nov 2006 01:48:00 PST

Here are some things we seem to forget every second

In our pursuit of creating things, there are some fundamental elements that we seem to completely forget almost 100% of the time.These things that I will mention will resonate with those of you in an ...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Thu, 26 Oct 2006 01:30:00 PST

First you are walking Death, then you get trapped into caring

We are trained in a few inverse manners: 1) to think that what other people think about us is more important than what we think about ourselves2) to believe that an authentic, factual representation o...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Thu, 31 Aug 2006 06:43:00 PST

There is a time to blog

To know and blog is to be one with blogging and this implies an inclination perhaps inherent in one's character to be motivated as it were to be blogging or reading said blogs. Certainly this has its...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 02:25:00 PST

Help to find Enemy Mine

Not the movie dammit, back when I discovered this band, I think I was still using altavista, anyone remember that? We all have oxygen tanks already, anyway, all I found was Dennis Quaid and Louis Go...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Fri, 10 Feb 2006 12:05:00 PST

My ears are bleeding

from listening to this Emperor track "With Strength I Burn" over and over at blistering levels. That song just kicks ass like you are getting crushed by a glacier. Also, Myspace is abalze with renew...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Fri, 07 Oct 2005 06:18:00 PST

Not the same old Internet Waste of time

This may be preaching to the choir here to say it, but dare I say that although the MySpace thing can suck the time right away from you, it does seem to produce some greater satisfaction and findings ...
Posted by Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST