LOZENGE - ProfilesArchive

About Me

LOZENGE formed in Houston, Texas, in 1992, disbanded in 1994, and regrouped in Chicago in 1996. John Robbins, who played electric viola and tenor saxophone, was a member from that point until late 2000, when he left an empty space in the world by deciding not to be alive anymore. The very tall Boris Hauf, who lives in Berlin, currently saxophones with the band when everyone is in the same place at the same time. Kyle moved to San Francisco in late 2003 and Kurt has since relocated to Austin. Philip and Mark remain in Chicago, awaiting a sign. Let the record state that LOZENGE, despite being enfeebled old men, will reconvene for performances at the drop of a hat, provided said hat is filled with such means as to make the venture logistically viable and economically sustainable.________________________________________________ ___________________________ A partial discography, omitting seven-inches, compilation appearances, and self-released recordings, includes the full-lengths PLENUM (Farrago, 1994), DOOZY (Toyo, 2000), MISHAP (live album, Sickroom, 2002), and UNDONE (Sickroom, 2005). ____________________________________________________________ _______________About the band's sound. Think of a metal-forming press operated by squirrels. A tornado that obeys traffic signals. A clothes dryer full of ball bearings, hornets, and large blocks of foam rubber. Less metaphorically: an idiosyncratic aesthetic of sensory overstimulation, poly-/a-/hyper-rhythmic propulsion, labyrinthine black humor, and tooth-rattling timbral density. In performance, LOZENGE aspires to the transformative joy of extreme energy expenditure and collective self-immolation. ____________________________________________________________ _______________LOZENGE songs are designed to disintegrate in flight. The idea is to get all the pieces back onto the runway at the same time. The studio albums provide reference versions of the tunes, so that a well-schooled attendee at a live show can recognize the moment when LOZENGE leaps from the rails and starts plowing across the countryside in a widening spiral, collecting broken fenceposts, rusty bear traps, and garlands of flowers as it goes. The band operates like an 18th-century automaton, driven by tarnished springs and incomprehensible incantations: the mechanism is so complex that failure is inevitable. And in music as in many other areas of life, failure often produces something more startling and beautiful than sticking to the plan ever could.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 6/27/2006
Band Website: mylozenge.com
Band Members: KYLE BRUCKMANN: accordion, minimoog, organ, oboe, voice. KURT JOHNSON: bass. PHILIP MONTORO: metal percussion, drums. MARK STEVENS: drums.
Influences: MUSICO-GENETIC (idols/precedents): amoebic ensemble / art ensemble of chicago / beefheart / big black / birthday party / black flag / boredoms / anthony braxton / cabaret voltaire / carbon / james chance / crash worship / devo / dna / dog faced hermans / eric dolphy / drive like jehu / einsturzende neubauten / the ex / foetus / fushitsusha / henry cow / charles ives / jesus lizard / gyorgy ligeti / math / melt banana / olivier messiaen / metallica / minor threat / molecules / nimrod / nomeansno / painkiller / harry partch / pere ubu / pussy galore / ruins / screamers / stooges / sun ra / test department / this heat / edgard varese / iannis xenakis / zeni geva . . . . . MUSICO-CONTEMPORANEOUS (komrades/billmates): the afflictions / les angles morts / arab on radar / the arch / athletic automaton / carter brown / check engine / cheer-accident / christmas decorations / bobby conn / buddha on the moon / coughs / deerhoof / dynamutt / efzeg / ex-models / eyesores / hella / herc. / fat day / fat worm of error / flying luttenbachers / grand ulena / groceries / gunshop / the jonx / lake of dracula / lavender / life partners / lightning bolt / the locust / long telegram / lowdown / magic ist kuntmaster / metal porpoise / my name is rar-rar / nautical almanac / pillow / pink & brown / pink noise / plague of yeti / psi / realicide / remember the maine / service anxiety / sleepytime gorilla museum / sweep the leg johnny / tit / trian tran / tv pow / us maple / voice of eye / wasteoid / yowie / zeek sheck / Zs . . . . . SOCIOHISTORO-GEOGRAPHICAL: Vienna 1912 / Paris 1913 / Berlin 1933 / Paris 1968 / Ohio 1976 / Manhattan 1978 / D.C. 1981 / Osaka 1989 / Houston 1992 / Chicago 1996 / Oakland 2000 / Ground Zero 2012 . . . . . NUEROCHEMICAL: glutamate / aspartate / dopamine / glycine / acetylcholine / serotonin / norepinephrine / gamma-aminobutyric acid / epinephrine . . . . . GASTRONOMIC: capsaicin / garlic / bourbon / kung-pao / panang / leafy greens
Sounds Like: "Let's be clear: LOZENGE is not all cacophony and things falling apart. They're also capable of quiet and textured group improvisation, and they have a tendency to match crooked, jaunty beats to Kyle's extended melodies and wheezing chords in a way that makes you think you've discovered a rusty man-sized music box that plays the folk dances of slavic countries that don't exist. But cacophony is never far away. In the midst of quiet atmospheres and broken folk dances it's always peeking over somebody's shoulder or waiting impatiently backstage, and is never gone for very long . . . My best attempt is this: LOZENGE plays frenetic rock music (I know, they disagree) that's structured more like jazz, but which is built on melodies that bear more of a resemblence to Eastern European folk music than rock or jazz. All of this occurs thunderously loudly, then a little quieter - or perhaps almost silently - and then thunderously again. Rhythmically, they rarely have only one thing going on at once. The four instruments might converge on a jarring dance, dissolve into chaos, recombine into a different dance and then one or two might diverge again from the rest like a lazy eye, making you wonder who's going to start following whom. No other group I know of can simultaneously make you want to dance spastically and force you you to stand stock still in tense expectation." (Joe Cannon, Copper Press 13)
Record Label: Sickroom, ToYo, Farrago
Type of Label: Indie