Rent Romus is a force spanning over twenty years of original improvised music, production, and performance. Romus is the founder and producer of Edgetone Records a new music label since 1991. He is also the Executive Director of Outsound.org under which he is the head curator of The SIMM Music Series at the Studio 6 Musicians Union Hall, and the famous Luggage Store Gallery New Music Series in San Francisco. He was the former Director of Promotion for the SFAlt Festival 2002-2004. Romus also runs a new music distribution network to brick and mortar stores for independent artist run record labels called UIRC (Ultra Independent Recording Coalition) currently available online as well as the Artistic Director of the Outsound Presents...Edgetone New Music Summit, a national music festival held in the greater San Francisco Bay Area every summer. Romus has been recording and producing live performances and events since 1988. His early musical history includes learning with jazz great Stan Getz, guitarist Bruce Forman, Dizzy Gillespie, Mel Martin, and drummer Eddie Moore.
Romus has to date performed or recorded with Chico Freeman, James Zitro former drummer for Charles Lloyd, Kash Killion former Sun Ra Arkestra cellist, Andrew Borger drummer for Tom Waits, Jason Olaine past AR director for Verve/Universal, blues guitarists Paris Slim, Joe Lewis Walker, Sonny Rhodes, and tenor sax pioneer John Tchicai, new music artists Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Marcos Fernandez, Philip Everett, Ray Scheaffer, Dina Emerson, and noise artist CJ Reaven Borosque. Romus performs in a wide range of sound aesthetics and genres.
BANDS
Lords of Outland
Romus’ vision of art takes the darkness and light of his own persona with that of the group members and translates it into musical combinations. Through the use of electronic & acoustic instrumentation, Romus composes his music to elicit a “feeling” as opposed to just simply entertain. The sound performed by the Lords of Outland follow a gut level harshness building upon a sparse structure while utilizing free improv. Noise and everything inbetween. In short, Romus takes a grunge attitude or bull-in-a-china-shop direction.
’Bloom’, a spirited and colossal collaboration between pianist Thollem Mcdonas, multi-saxophonist and electronician Rent Romus, instrument builder Steven Baker, and drummer and found-object player Jon Brumit. The CD features free group improvisations as well as interpretations of numerous textual and graphical scores offered up by Mcdonas and Brumit. The entire album is an organic construction and expression of solos, duos, and trios combining disparate and divergent stylistic histories with a sense of refreshing immediacy, intensity, and spontaneous inventiveness.
QUOTES
"...his (mostly) gentle phrasing underlining a potential, yet still non-existent rebellion while transmuting the predominant tides into deformed film-noirish soundtracks, with rain pouring down on the trash amassed in dark alleys."
Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes, Rome, Italy
"Rent remains a force for me, his restraint as powerful as his melodic attacks."
Thurston Hunger, KFJC 89.7 FM Los Altos, CA
“Swings like death and hell.”
Jack Lind, Det Fri Aktuelt, Copenhagen, Denmark
“...a ferocious improviser.”
San Francisco Weekly
“...dynamic, and monstrous.”
Sam Prestianni, Oakland Montclarion
“Overall, Romus’ performance was raw and full of musical vigor, which inspired a higher order and left the audience with a smitten effect.
Thorbjorn Sjogren, Politiken, Denmark
“Romus has been central to the creative music world of the West Coast for a number of years, and he keeps stretching the boundries of originality with each new release.”
Frank Rubolino - onefinalnote.com/Cadence
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