Balance Point Acoustics : Damon Smith

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Featured CD:

Firestorm is an intense and musically assaultive release of killer, balls-out free jazz that will appeal to those who long for the most bombasic works of Broetzmann, Ayler, Takayanagi and Cecil Taylor! This release reveals many shades of intensity and mood while remaining frenzied and inventive at all times. Featuring Taylor alumni Marco Eneidi (alto), Marc Edwards (drums), Lisle Ellis (bass), Elliott Levin (tenor), Sun Ra Arkestra legend Marshall Allen (alto), bassist Damon Smith and manic Austrian reedist Mario Rechtern, Firestorm is a delerious concoction of new energy music that pushes beyond the stratosphere of sound!

You can send a paypal for $15 pp to damon@balancepointacoustics.com If you would like one. Buy This CD

A few copies of "Healing Force" are available You can send a paypal for $15 pp to damon@balancepointacoustics.com If you would like one.

Vinny Golia-reeds
Aurora Josephson-voice
Henry Kaiser-guitar
Mike Keneally-piano, guitar and voice
Joe Morris-guitar and double bass
Damon Smith-double bass
Weasel Walter-drums

Seven major figures from the art-punk, free-jazz, brutal prog, improvisational and modern jazz world come together for a ROCKING tribute to the unfairly ignored, misunderstood and vilified late period works of Albert Ayler. These late period songs have always seemed to me like they may have been some of the most personally spritually resonant for Ayler, but the musicians and the culture of the late 1960s were possibly not able to successfully translate and perform his concept of spirituality, free jazz, boogaloo, nursery rhythms, marching bands, blues and r'n'b, and certainly the free-jazz following public was not ready to accept it. Now, 40 years and many stylistic mash-ups later, perhaps these works can be better enjoyed.

“Albert Ayler's later works (Love Cry, New Grass and Music is the Healing Force of the Universe) seem to be generally reviled. Through meditations, dreams, and visions, the players on this project were given the message to once again attempt to send the people of earth a message of love, peace, and spiritual understanding. We selected a representative set of tunes for this material and essentially let it play itself through us. We hope you will be as surprised as we still are by the results of this invocational experiment. We hope you will like this record.”
- Henry Kaiser, producer and guitarist Buy This CD

Limited copies of the "Noisy People" dvd are available here. It is a Film by Tim Perkis featuing Damon Smith and other Bay Area Musicians. Includes footage of Gratkowski/Bryerton/Smith and Wolfgang Fuchs' Six Fuchs Project. Buy This CD

Improvised music form Oakland and Tel Aviv from the Jerusalem based Kadima Label.
Aurora Josephson - voice
Ariel Shibolet - soprano saxophone
Jen Baker - trombone
Scott R. Looney - piano
Damon Smith - double bass Buy This CD

"Ghetto Caylpso" Peter Kowald/Marco Eneidi/Damon Smith/Spirit out now on NOTTWO records. Buy This CD

New from Nuscope Records: Biggi Vinkeloe, alto saxophone, flute; Damon Smith, double-bass; Kjell Nordeson, drums, vibraphone Buy This CD

Forthcoming CD's

BPA 013 "Pepper Spray" Ariel Shibolet/Jen Baker/Damon Smith/Jerome Bryerton

Bertram Turetzky/Damon Smith ThoughtBeetle

"Sperrgut"
Players: BIRGIT ULHER / DAMON SMITH / MARTIN BLUME
Reviewed by: Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy
BIRGIT ULHER - DAMON SMITH - MARTIN BLUME Sperrgut (Balance Point Acoustics, bpa009): Damon Smith (*1972, Spokane, WA) verdankte Mike Watt 1991 den Kick vom BMX-Bicycle-Freestyler zum Fenderbassisten, bevor ihn 1994 die Bekanntschaft mit der Musik von Peter Kowald zum Kontrabass wechseln ließ und damit erneut zum Freestyle. Seitdem war er vor allem im Kontext mit dem Altosaxophonisten Marco Eneidi zu hören, mit Gianni Gebbia und auch Kowald persönlich oder auch im Emergency String Quartet und im Dave Tucker West Coast Project (beides BA-einschlägig). Seit einiger Zeit widmet sich das BPA-Label in Oakland speziell seiner Musik, mit der er auffallend häufig Begegnungen mit Musikern aus Germany sucht - neben Kowald etwa Wolfgang Fuchs, Frank Gratkowski, Serge Baghdassarians, Boris Baltschun oder Martin Blume (Zero Plus, bpa007). Erneut mit dem Bochumer Drummer und mit der Trompeterin Birgit Ulher, beide im Oktober 2004 auf musikalischer Stipvisite an der West Coast, gelingt Smith eine exemplarische Reihe von Soundclashes, geradezu fiebrige Stenographien aus geräuschhaften Kürzeln, die durch ihre Quickness und spritzige Fülle am ‚expressiven‘, besser, am dynamischen Pol der Plinkplonkskala herum wirbeln. Rasende Molekularbewegungen, so schnell und funkelnd, dass die Lautpixel bei aller Kompression und Reibung soviel ‚Luft‘, soviel Zeit und Raum zwischen sich lassen wie die Sternenmilch und der Satellitenschrott im Makrokosmos. Sperrgut ist ein schönes deutsches Wort und lässt anklingen, dass sich darunter noch allerhand Brauchbares finden ließe, statt es zu zerschreddern und in Müllheizkraftwerken durch den Schlot zu jagen. Sperrig ist die schnarrende, spuckig zerstotterte, schabende, rappelnde, mit erstaunlichen Saitenverbiegungen aufwartende Ästhetik des Trios insofern, dass sie nicht glatt ins Ohr rutscht, dass sie aneckt, kratzt, kitzelt, irritiert, manchmal zu winzig für das Auge, oft zu schnell für das Ohr. Dass zwischen Sperrgut und Müll Platz für ein riesiges Kulturindustriegebiet bleibt, ist freilich nicht gerade eine Neuigkeit. Bad Alchemy Rigobert Dittmann Franz-Ludwig-Str.11 97072 Würzburg