Byzar
Encyclopedia
Byzar is an experimental electronic music ensemble, considered one of the founders of the Illbient
genre, along with DJ Spooky
, Sub Dub, We
, and the Soundlab
collective, active in the New York experimental dance/electronic music scene during the 1990s.
organ.
Adams played guitar in an experimental rock trio called S*A*M, worked as an engineer in a hip-hop & dancehall studio called "Midimation" with artists such as Mikey Dread
and KRS-One
, and co-hosted a weekly event called "The Abstrakt Lounge" featuring Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky
at the "3 of Cups" basement lounge in New York's East Village in 1993.
DJ Spooky
lived in the nearby Gas Station, a former gas station turned into a renegade sculpture garden in Alphabet City, and began hosting multimedia events called "Molecular", which attracted artists from the burgeoning Brooklyn dub scenes, DJ's, performance artists and installation designers, who would have free rein to transform the space with inflatables, video projections and various artistic efforts. Adams would provide sound equipment and organization help, and would often create electronic guitar soundscapes at one end of the garage space while Spooky mixed raw breakbeats at the other end.
Abstrakt Lounge and Molecular were part of a network of happenings and events, including the Abstrakt Wave, where Adams began performing as an 'ambient DJ', playing the byzar soundscapes layered with other recordings and rudimentary beats. Other musicians, such as Manny Oquendo, who had been a client at Adams's studio, asked if they could join Adams during his sets, and Byzar began to grow into a fluid collective. Miguel Lopez, who also worked as an engineer, offered after-hours studio time, and the group began intensive studio experimentation.
Byzar was envisioned as an electronic improvisational experiment, and did not adhere to song structure or popular music formats. Live shows and studio recordings were entirely improvised, with a rotating line-up of "expressionists" playing various instruments and devices. Influenced by dub music, Byzar applied dub
studio mixing techniques to their live performances, and varied atmospheric textures with polyrhythmic electronic dance music.http://www.metamute.org/en/Musical-Space-Invaders
Many of the soundscapes were created using antiquated state-of-the-art technology, such as the Serge
modular analog synthesizer featured in Softcell's "Tainted Love" and the Synclavier
, a digital recording system based on a mainframe, which could record at 100 kHz in the 80's. Byzar used this to record several ethnic instruments and then replay them at half-speed, creating glitch & alias-free soundscapes.
Byzar intentionally designed their vinyl releases for play at different speeds. John Peel
often played Byzar's records at different speeds.
events with musicians including Vernon Reid
, DJ Spooky
, Marc Ribot
, Ras Mesinai and Micah Gaugh, and recorded a collaboration "Yaizon" with Priest
from the Anti-Pop Consortium, featured on Jungle Sky's "FUNK" compilation. As a charter member of the Soundlab happenings, Byzar played sets with Vernon Reid
, Alec Empire
, DJ Krush
. Byzar collaborated with multimedia artist Mariko Mori
on the music for her 3-D work "Nirvana" , which was featured in the 1997 Venice Bienniale.
, and "Abstrakt Phusion" at the Knitting Factory
. Adams designed and managed a 50,000 watt multi-zone integrated soundsystem for the Creative Time Soundlab event at the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage in 1996, which attracted over 6000 people.
Working with promoter Matt E. Silver, Byzar created "chill out" rooms for the New York City shows of The Orb
, Prodigy
, Chemical Brothers,
, reaching #11 on the CMJ Dance Music Charts http://books.google.com/books?id=_CoEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA62&ots=jc4LGdY4id&dq=byzar%20RPM%20charts&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q=byzar%20RPM%20charts&f=false
Lucy Walker
directed an avant-garde video for "Phylyx", which aired on MTV's Amp
, showing on AMP episodes #116, #122 and #124 The video featured heavily processed stock footage, light painting, and rapid synchronized edits, not showing any of the group's members in easily recognizable form.
Byzar was featured on the cover of issue #154 of Wire Magazine
Byzar performed internationally, doing a NYC-themed "end of the century" TV special on French Television (M6), playing at London's Institute of Contemporary Art and St. Matthews' Church in Brixton, and playing Der Volksbuhne in Berlin.
Byzar created a white-label only mashup
called "Darth Vader vs. The Sugar Plum Fairies" in February 1997, remixing the Imperial March to a mutant hip-hop beat, then blending Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies; this record was also given personally to John Peel
, who played it on his show several times. DJ Spooky used this as a backing track for Rakim's "Paid in Full" lyrics on recent mixtapes.
Byzar's material was widely downloaded on free sites, and citing poor sales, Asphodel did not seek to release a follow-up album. Byzar languished for several years, attempting to release 'Yaizon' independently in 1998, but finding little traction. Members continue to work individually, and there have been references to a new album, "Polykronyk 13:20".
In 2009, Adams revived the Byzar brand for a remix of "Fungirl" by the New York Band Jessica 6
, and is currently co-producing Jessica 6's debut album. Byzar appears to be making efforts to revive itself, with a performance at DC's Artomatic
festival in 2009.
Illbient
Illbient is a term allegedly coined by DJ Olive to describe the iconoclastic music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in 1994...
genre, along with DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
, Sub Dub, We
We
We is the first-person, plural personal pronoun in Modern English.- Atypical uses of we : A nosism is the use of 'we' to refer to oneself....
, and the Soundlab
Soundlab
Soundlab was a collective of artists, both sound and visual, that started in the East Village, New York City around the mid 90's. Founding members were Howard Goldkrand, Beth Coleman and Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky and included many musicians and artists from the Illbient scene including DJ...
collective, active in the New York experimental dance/electronic music scene during the 1990s.
Background
Founded in 1994 by Akin Adams, the earliest Byzar recordings were long-form textural soundscapes made with a 4-track cassette recording of multiple layers of heavily processed guitars, found objects and a badly damaged FarfisaFarfisa
Farfisa is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy.The Farfisa brand name is commonly associated with a series of compact electronic organs, and later, a series of multi-timbral synthesizers. At the height of its production, Farfisa operated three factories to produce instruments, in...
organ.
Adams played guitar in an experimental rock trio called S*A*M, worked as an engineer in a hip-hop & dancehall studio called "Midimation" with artists such as Mikey Dread
Mikey Dread
Michael George Campbell , better known as Mikey Dread, was a Jamaican singer, producer, and broadcaster. He was one of the most influential performers and innovators in reggae music...
and KRS-One
KRS-One
Lawrence Krisna Parker , better known by his stage names KRS-One , and Teacha, is an American rapper...
, and co-hosted a weekly event called "The Abstrakt Lounge" featuring Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
at the "3 of Cups" basement lounge in New York's East Village in 1993.
DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
lived in the nearby Gas Station, a former gas station turned into a renegade sculpture garden in Alphabet City, and began hosting multimedia events called "Molecular", which attracted artists from the burgeoning Brooklyn dub scenes, DJ's, performance artists and installation designers, who would have free rein to transform the space with inflatables, video projections and various artistic efforts. Adams would provide sound equipment and organization help, and would often create electronic guitar soundscapes at one end of the garage space while Spooky mixed raw breakbeats at the other end.
Abstrakt Lounge and Molecular were part of a network of happenings and events, including the Abstrakt Wave, where Adams began performing as an 'ambient DJ', playing the byzar soundscapes layered with other recordings and rudimentary beats. Other musicians, such as Manny Oquendo, who had been a client at Adams's studio, asked if they could join Adams during his sets, and Byzar began to grow into a fluid collective. Miguel Lopez, who also worked as an engineer, offered after-hours studio time, and the group began intensive studio experimentation.
Byzar was envisioned as an electronic improvisational experiment, and did not adhere to song structure or popular music formats. Live shows and studio recordings were entirely improvised, with a rotating line-up of "expressionists" playing various instruments and devices. Influenced by dub music, Byzar applied dub
Dubbing (music)
In sound recording, dubbing is the transfer or copying of previously recorded audio material from one medium to another of the same or a different type. It may be done with a machine designed for this purpose, or by connecting two different machines: one to play back and one to record the signal...
studio mixing techniques to their live performances, and varied atmospheric textures with polyrhythmic electronic dance music.http://www.metamute.org/en/Musical-Space-Invaders
Members
Members include:- Akin Adams : electronic & acoustic rhythms, electronic guitar, effects and live mixing, codenamed 'Quantyk' for his focus on all things rhythmic
- Manny Oqeundo aka MegMan : electric bass, analog synthesizers, processed vocal effects, codenamed 'Acoustyk' for his background as an acoustic musician
- Miguel Diaz de Lopez: engineering and electronic sound design, samplers and analog synths, codenamed 'Ylyptyk' for his eccentric use of delays and loops
- Karthik Swaminathan : electric violin and effects, codenamed 'Karttyk' for eponymity
- Laura Marie Williams : electric bass, vocals
- Lucy WalkerLucy WalkerLucy Walker is a film director, mostly of theatrical feature documentaries. On January 25th, 2010 she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Waste Land, which she directed.-Film career:...
: DJ and sound effects - Hector Becerra : live drums, processed acoustic & vocal effects, codenamed 'Elektryk' for reasons unknown
- Karl Francke : harmonica and custom analog synth/oscilloscope controller
Methods
Byzar developed a “technorganic” praxis for audio production, harmonizing the vital instincts of live musicianship with the transformative potential of digital technology. The Gaiatronyk album’s rhythmic programming metaphorically explores genetic theory: “phenotypes” (audible sound events) of certain rhythms are combined with the “genotypes” (rhythmic event sequences) of others, creating new hybrids further manipulated in real time during the recording and mixing process.Many of the soundscapes were created using antiquated state-of-the-art technology, such as the Serge
Serge
Serge is a type of twill fabric that has diagonal lines or ridges on both sides, made with a two-up, two-down weave. The worsted variety is used in making military uniforms, suits, great coats and trench coats. Its counterpart, silk serge, is used for linings. French serge is a softer, finer variety...
modular analog synthesizer featured in Softcell's "Tainted Love" and the Synclavier
Synclavier
The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation, Norwich, VT. The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of...
, a digital recording system based on a mainframe, which could record at 100 kHz in the 80's. Byzar used this to record several ethnic instruments and then replay them at half-speed, creating glitch & alias-free soundscapes.
Byzar intentionally designed their vinyl releases for play at different speeds. John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
often played Byzar's records at different speeds.
Collaborations
The group collaborated at SoundlabSoundlab
Soundlab was a collective of artists, both sound and visual, that started in the East Village, New York City around the mid 90's. Founding members were Howard Goldkrand, Beth Coleman and Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky and included many musicians and artists from the Illbient scene including DJ...
events with musicians including Vernon Reid
Vernon Reid
Vernon Reid is an English-born American guitarist, songwriter, composer, and bandleader. Best known as the founder and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Living Colour, Reid was named #66 on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.Critic Steve Huey writes, "[Reid's]...
, DJ Spooky
DJ Spooky
Paul D. Miller , known by his stage name DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics or his fans as "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntablist, a producer, a philosopher, and an author...
, Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
, Ras Mesinai and Micah Gaugh, and recorded a collaboration "Yaizon" with Priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
from the Anti-Pop Consortium, featured on Jungle Sky's "FUNK" compilation. As a charter member of the Soundlab happenings, Byzar played sets with Vernon Reid
Vernon Reid
Vernon Reid is an English-born American guitarist, songwriter, composer, and bandleader. Best known as the founder and primary songwriter of the heavy metal band Living Colour, Reid was named #66 on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.Critic Steve Huey writes, "[Reid's]...
, Alec Empire
Alec Empire
Alec Empire is a German musician who is best known as a founding member of the band Atari Teenage Riot. Also a prolific and distinguished solo artist, producer and DJ, he has released well over a hundred albums, EPs and singles and remixed over seventy tracks for various artists including Björk...
, DJ Krush
DJ Krush
, better known as DJ Krush, is a producer and DJ. He is known for his atmospheric instrumental production which incorporates sound elements from nature and extensive use of jazz and soul samples.-Biography:...
. Byzar collaborated with multimedia artist Mariko Mori
Mariko Mori
Mariko Mori is a Japanese video and photographic artist. While studying at Bunka Fashion College, she worked as a fashion model in the late 1980s. This strongly influenced her early works, such as Play with Me, in which she takes control of her role in the image, becoming an exotic, alien...
on the music for her 3-D work "Nirvana" , which was featured in the 1997 Venice Bienniale.
Installations
Byzar also designed multimedia performance installations and site transformations, including "Resonatryx" at The KitchenThe Kitchen
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary art and performance space located at at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City...
, and "Abstrakt Phusion" at the Knitting Factory
Knitting Factory
The Knitting Factory is a music venue and concert house with locations in Brooklyn, Boise, Reno, and Spokane. The club originally specialized in jazz and experimental music and has expanded to showcasing all genres of music, performing arts and comedy....
. Adams designed and managed a 50,000 watt multi-zone integrated soundsystem for the Creative Time Soundlab event at the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage in 1996, which attracted over 6000 people.
Working with promoter Matt E. Silver, Byzar created "chill out" rooms for the New York City shows of The Orb
The Orb
Throughout 1989, the Orb, along with Martin Glover, developed the musical genre of ambient house through the use of a diverse array of samples and recordings. The culmination of its musical work came toward the end of the year when the group recorded a session for John Peel on BBC Radio 1...
, Prodigy
The Prodigy
The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music group formed by Liam Howlett in 1990 in Braintree, Essex. Along with Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, and other acts, The Prodigy have been credited as pioneers of the big beat genre, which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s and 2000s...
, Chemical Brothers,
Debut Album
The debut album, "Gaiatronyk vs. the Cheap Robots" was released on Asphodel RecordsAsphodel Records
Asphodel Ltd was a San Francisco-based independent record label founded by musician Mitzi Johnson in 1992. The label is named after the mythological flower that grows along the banks of the River Styx in Hades....
, reaching #11 on the CMJ Dance Music Charts http://books.google.com/books?id=_CoEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA62&ots=jc4LGdY4id&dq=byzar%20RPM%20charts&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q=byzar%20RPM%20charts&f=false
Lucy Walker
Lucy Walker
Lucy Walker is a film director, mostly of theatrical feature documentaries. On January 25th, 2010 she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Waste Land, which she directed.-Film career:...
directed an avant-garde video for "Phylyx", which aired on MTV's Amp
Amp (TV series)
Amp was a music video program on MTV that aired from 1997 to 2001. It was aimed at the electronic music and rave crowd and was responsible for exposing many electronica acts to the mainstream. When co-creator Todd Mueller left the show in 1998, it was redubbed Amp 2.0. The show aired some 46...
, showing on AMP episodes #116, #122 and #124 The video featured heavily processed stock footage, light painting, and rapid synchronized edits, not showing any of the group's members in easily recognizable form.
Byzar was featured on the cover of issue #154 of Wire Magazine
Byzar performed internationally, doing a NYC-themed "end of the century" TV special on French Television (M6), playing at London's Institute of Contemporary Art and St. Matthews' Church in Brixton, and playing Der Volksbuhne in Berlin.
Byzar created a white-label only mashup
Mashup (music)
A mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another...
called "Darth Vader vs. The Sugar Plum Fairies" in February 1997, remixing the Imperial March to a mutant hip-hop beat, then blending Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies; this record was also given personally to John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
, who played it on his show several times. DJ Spooky used this as a backing track for Rakim's "Paid in Full" lyrics on recent mixtapes.
Byzar's material was widely downloaded on free sites, and citing poor sales, Asphodel did not seek to release a follow-up album. Byzar languished for several years, attempting to release 'Yaizon' independently in 1998, but finding little traction. Members continue to work individually, and there have been references to a new album, "Polykronyk 13:20".
Recent Activity
There is a human gene named after Byzar.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/IEB/Research/Acembly/av.cgi?db=human&l=byzarIn 2009, Adams revived the Byzar brand for a remix of "Fungirl" by the New York Band Jessica 6
Jessica 6 (band)
Jessica 6 is a Brooklyn-based Nu-disco and R&B trio that formed after helping put together the Hercules and Love Affair live show. Formerly known as Deep Red, their name was taken from the lead character of the same name from the 1967 novel Logan's Run....
, and is currently co-producing Jessica 6's debut album. Byzar appears to be making efforts to revive itself, with a performance at DC's Artomatic
Artomatic
Artomatic is a five-week, multimedia arts event held in the Washington, D.C. area. It has been held in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008 and 2009...
festival in 2009.
Sample Reviews
"Byzar's impalpable liquid sound hovers between dark Dub and light Ambient. Echoplex snores; some obscure 20th Century electronic composer's vinyl is scratched with reverence and malice; sounds are processed and reprocessed into aural obscurity, erasing the original and creating something wholly within the domain of electricity. This is the same electricity that is found within the body -- synaptic firing, orgones accumulating, neural transmissions, and chi flowing -- all somehow audible at a macro level. Hearing such intimate processes amplified outside the body is somehow uncanny, but Byzar are a slow-motion explosion of pure bliss." [/]
"Byzar are, without argument, precisely that on their debut full-length for Asphodel. Though swiftly pegged as res logicus for the DJ Spooky coattail treatment, this roving collective of beat manipulators and signal mutators are operating from far more interesting territory ... Focusing on off-kilter rhythms and strange and scary monochromatic acoustic and electronic textures, the group's novel sheets of beat-oriented ambient dub-hop recall the more successful moments of Scorn and Techno Animal without falling into the bland repetition and reverb fetishism that tend to mar those groups. A surprisingly mature debut."
Album & EPs
- Beings from the B'yond Within, Vol.1 (Asphodel RecordsAsphodel RecordsAsphodel Ltd was a San Francisco-based independent record label founded by musician Mitzi Johnson in 1992. The label is named after the mythological flower that grows along the banks of the River Styx in Hades....
) [1996] - Gaiatronyk vs. the Cheap Robots (Asphodel RecordsAsphodel RecordsAsphodel Ltd was a San Francisco-based independent record label founded by musician Mitzi Johnson in 1992. The label is named after the mythological flower that grows along the banks of the River Styx in Hades....
) [1997]
Compilations
- "Incursions In Illbient" compilation (Asphodel RecordsAsphodel RecordsAsphodel Ltd was a San Francisco-based independent record label founded by musician Mitzi Johnson in 1992. The label is named after the mythological flower that grows along the banks of the River Styx in Hades....
)[1996] - "This is Jungle Sky, Vol.7, Funk" (Jungle Sky Records) 1998
- "Necropolis: The Dialogic Project" (Knitting FactoryKnitting FactoryThe Knitting Factory is a music venue and concert house with locations in Brooklyn, Boise, Reno, and Spokane. The club originally specialized in jazz and experimental music and has expanded to showcasing all genres of music, performing arts and comedy....
)