NEW YORK (Electric Turn Official Website/ www.electricturntome.com) - "A raging Monsoon to my ears, like a renegade Orkestra (sic) riding a global wave out in front of the next hurricane". Mark Anderson, Fan, about recent show.
See Electric Turn To Me at:
CMJ New
Music Showcase @
Northsix (downstairs)
66 North 6th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211, 718.599.5103, Subway: L to Bedford
Sat, Oct 16, 2004
Line-Up:
9:00 THE DISEASE
10:00 PERFECT PANTHER
11:00 ELECTRIC TURN TO ME
12:00 SNACKTRUCK
Electric Turn To Me are:
Silke - Vocals, Guitar
Kai Fiedler - Guitar
Marcus DeGrazia - Organs, Keyboards, Sound Effects
Blake Fleming - Percussion,
Drums With Influences that vary widely (From the 60s psychedelia of Love and The Pretty Things over 70s Ziggy
Stardust to 80's Post-Punk-Fatalists Joy Division) ETTM is a band for fans of the dark pop of Interpol, the reckless abandon of the
Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the progressive roots of the Secret Machines.
Fleming and DeGrazia, in any case, have decidedly strange musical pedigrees.
At age 15, Fleming started drumming for Dazzling Killmen, a pummeling post-rock band from St. Louis whose second full-length album, Face of Collapse, was named the heaviest album of the '90s by Alternative Press. DeGrazia was a classically trained saxophonist, who discovered noise-punk freakout in his post-college years. Through the latter half of the 1990s, the two played together in Laddio Bolocko, a New York band who made their name with deconstructed musical freakout.
Silke didn't come from any particular musical background at all. As of four years ago, she was an art student in Hannover, Germany with no musical aspirations whatsoever. But Laddio Bolocko changed that. One night in early 2000, Silke had gone to see that band play at a club in Hannover. She was drunk.
Friends wanted to leave. She'd just paid a cover charge and wasn't about to go before hearing a song or two. "This band started playing and, two seconds into it, there was no way we were going to leave," she said. "It blew our f**king minds. Before that I listened to a lot of mainstream music. I hadn't started playing and writing. I just sat there and watched them freak out, and it was what I think music should be, very visceral and very real."
She left the club, but came back that night to talk with the band. She and Fleming hit it off. Later that year, she moved to New York.
After a half year's involvement with the creation of The
Mars Volta in LA in 2001, Fleming returned to Brooklyn and began experimenting with progressive-aggressive pop ideas with Silke that would soon attract Marcus DeGrazia. This match rekindled a longtime musical relationship of untiring creative energy between Fleming and DeGrazia and set the stage for the emergence of Silke's truly unique voice and irresistible style.
The three spent the summer of 2002 creating songs with an explosive depth of dynamics and emotions, a kaleidoscope of contrast, the goal being a link between extremes: Soft to Rough, Noise to Silence, Classic to New, Slow to Fast, Known to Unknown.
With a little spark of madness, they've created atmospheric, crushing art-rock, really smart shit that smashes you up against a wall.
In a few months they came upon
James Wilk and Electric Turn To Me was born. A slew of New York gigs lead to two self-recorded EPs on Philadelphia's No Quarter Records. With both EP's scoring on hometown WNYU's top 20 weekly lists, a feature in Rockpile magazine, a growing following and generally glowing press, ETTM decided to hit the road. A six-week tour of the U.S. and a five-week tour of
Europe found them playing with bands as diverse as Q and not U, Kinski, Chinese Stars, My Enemies Friends, Bad Wizard, Wolf Eyes, Young People and Denali, completing over 100 shows in their first year alone. After playing SXSW this spring ETTM made a split with guitarist Wilk.
One phone call later, they brought in longtime friend Kai Fiedler who, as Kingfischer, created a surplus of stunningly beautiful and original pop songs in his hometown of Berlin, Germany. He then did what any rational minded person would do: quickly packed up his gear and immediately got on a plane to NYC while dreams of rock n roll sugar plums danced all around his kopf!
Fall 2004 marks the beginning of the band's first full-length recording. Here ETTM is joined by the creativity of producer Michael Deming (Pernice Brothers, Lilys, Beachwood Sparks, Earth), who approached the band with the idea of capturing the psychedelic-apocalyptic sounds of an emerging new vision. They'll take a break from recording for few select shows including their CMJ Showcase on October 16th @ Northsix .
Watch out for a new KFJC Compilation later this year featuring an unreleased live take of "The Trap" as well as a new International Collection of all Girl Punk, Rock and Garage called "We ain't Housewife Material" out on Dionysus Records.
A new GSL release "A Manual Dexterity Vol.1" features Fleming on drums and percussion alongside guitarists Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez (Mars Volta, At the Drive-In) and
John Frusciante (Red Hot Chilli Peppers).
"People really love us or they hate us," Fleming said. "There's not much middle ground, and I think that's a good thing. We're doing something that makes people feel something. It's not innocuous."
PRESS:
Village Voice: "A sexy and songful psych-goth-pop outfit, ETTM''s swirling globs of sound reminds me of the colorful and ornate monsters from classic Japanese kids' shows where the costumes were trippy and futuristic, but slightly disconcerting."
Rockpile: "Throaty crescendos go from back-alley lullaby to climax in animalistic desperation, before swirling like a glass gown towards ultimate fragility...could easily impress those currently enamored with The Faint or Milemarker..."
Alternative Press: " Angular-Rock Weirdos...60s psych-rock fans too young to remember the 60's, but just old enough to have been hit hard by 80's gothic punk."
"A fascinating mixture of several different kinds of musical influences... an amazingly talented group of musicians...The vocals Silke puts forth for ETTM are quite incredible, and as they should be...for a band featuring ex-members of crazed rock groups Laddio Bolocko and the Mars Volta...They've got style and substance in a time where both are in short supply, let alone in the same package. Clouds Move So Fast proves again that Electric Turn to Me is the real fucking deal...... Listen to it several times and it won't go out of your mind anymore... This is much more than just a promising debut...ETTM are a horse of a different color. Any time you think you have this band placed, along comes the next song differing wildly from the last and like all great music, each song demands a few listens before its sneaky brilliance seeps in... Fans of unusual indie rock will adore this twisted band from America's capital of culture......No one makes music like this.
They are swiftly careening forward.. with a confidence unusual for an up-and-coming band....This is the new hype."
(thanks to Modzine; Aiding & Abetting; Leaked Albums; Indieworkshop; Impactpress; Disagreement; Pulp, Pittsburgh; Cleveland Free Times; Monochrome)
https://www.Electricturntome.com/ Listen here:
https://www.electricturntome.com/Musicfiles/Demos100704/Carousels.M3U