- Martin Bisi -

Sirens of the Apocalypse CD

From the producer/engineer of Sonic Youth, Swans, Bill Laswell, John Zorn, Herbie Hancock, Afrika Bambaata,The Dresden Dolls, Foetus, Serena Maneesh and many more....

The CD

Martin Bisi, performer/songwriter and prominent indie fringe record producer, returns to the realm of his personal recordings with Sirens of the Apocalypse - twelve songs that emanated from his legendary recording lair in Brooklyn over the last seven years. Bisi has been at the forefront of studio recording since 1981, with a long discography that stretches from Iggy Pop, The Ramones and White Zombie to John Zorn, Herbie Hancock and Sonic Youth.

On Sirens of the Apocalypse, his 4th full-length solo rendering since '89, he expands 4 piece rock into a mutant, experimental-pop concoction. The record is a personal document of Martin Bisi's life, times and on-going creative process: backup vocals whispered into 8-track recorders in the corners of airport terminals; guitar overdubs in crowded college youth hostels; lyrics written during breaks in other artists' sessions; and a spoken story of a crazy late-night encounter in a Brooklyn bar.

The production - or anti-production - is reminiscent of Bisi's chaotic but beautiful early Sonic Youth recordings. "Goth Chick '98", which also has a video embedded in the CD, has a dark cabaret feel, and comments on the cabaret/circus punk scene of The Dresden Dolls, Barbez and Beat Circus, that Bisi has shared an orbit with since the late 90's. "Buddhist Girl" has a massive "Don't Fear The Reaper" style shoegaze, Krishna cult feeling, with electric sitar, tablas, djimbes and bells. Other songs veer between moody ("Felicity Ann McGuire"), psychedelic ("Buddhist Girl", "Mary Maudlin"), poppy ("Parsippany, NJ"), "indie-rock" (title track "Sirens Of The Apocalypse") and harder rock ("Rock Mona Lisa", "My American Way").

Multiple female characters, dwelling in our epic times, inspired the album's artwork and title, Sirens of the Apocalypse. Lyrically, the songs are vignettes of love, obsession and the jungle of gender interactions. "Mary Maudlin" is about a short lived crush at a mall, and is a word play on Mary Magdalene, a muze both saintly and sluttishly profane. "Buddhist Girl" was inspired by the high-maintenance women at a pricey yoga center. "Felicity Ann McGuire", written during the recording of the first Dresden Dolls record, is about a girl living in a Cocteau/Sherwood Forest-like dream, and was inspired by the freakish, vine covered building in Boston that was the Dolls' home base.

The Players

Bisi tapped Rebecca Moore (artist on John Zorn's Tzadik label, and contributor/collaborator with Richard Foreman and Jeff Buckley) to play piano and toy piano on the album's only guitar-free song, "Goth Chick '98". Drawing from his NY scene associations, Bisi forged a rhythm section who could master the complex hard rock that under-pins much of the material. Bassist Christian Bongers played in Gandhi (with Page Hamilton of Helmet), Botanica, Loudspeaker and with Scottish songstress Angela McCluskey. Drummer Billy Atwell (he also plays lap steel and electric sitar) was in the arty hard rock band Shirley Temple Of Doom, and recently played in theatrical rock adaptations of Hair and Mid-Summer Night's Dream. DJ Butterface, turntablist and DJ-about-town, does the keys, turntable and generally provides an early hip-hop/remix sensibility to the music. John Keith, the current drummer for live appearances, drums on the opening/title track. Bisi sings, speaks, plays all the guitars and adds FX.

The History

Martin Bisi was born in 1961 to Argentinian parents and grew up in Manhattan. His mother was a concert pianist who specialized in Liszt and Chopin and toured extensively, and his father played tango-style piano as a hobby. Bisi was sent to French school, given a lot of music lessons and made to go regularly to the NY Philharmonic and the opera. He rebelled against all of these - it was the 60's after all - and developed a disdain for academically accepted music, never fully embracing the instruments he was made to study. The 60's were a vibrant time in New York City, and the energized youth culture that Bisi saw instilled in him a fascination with the social role of music. By 1975, at age 14, Bisi was doing graffiti on NY's streets and subways. His first tag was "Alive In 75" , but he switched to "TagE" the next year.

This first experience in anti-art inspired interest in the anti-music of avant-garde noise and downtown no-wave bands around '79-'80. Bisi soon met John Zorn and Bill Laswell, both older than himself, at a rehearsal/ performance space. Instinctively drawn in, he threw himself into doing live, then studio, sound. Soon Bisi and Laswell got a loft space in a frontier-zone of Brooklyn where multiple musicians lived and rehearsed. Bisi started acquiring recording equipment, and then in late '80, Laswell and Bisi met Brian Eno. Eno had taken an interest in NY's no-wave scene and was coming regularly to see Laswell's band Material. At one show, Eno stood by the board and watched Bisi do sound; at the end of the set, he proposed they meet the next day. Soon the idea of Eno helping Laswell and Bisi create a viable recording space in Brooklyn was formed. In January '81, Bisi had the first real recording session of his life, with Brian Eno. Those recordings found their way into Eno's ambient series of releases, notably On Land. He named the studio OAO for "Operation All Out", copped from William Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch. Much ground-breaking avant-garde music started to flow out of OAO.

Simultaneously, Bisi and the Material crew were going to the Roxy roller rink in Manhattan on Friday nights, where the Bronx based hip-hop nation would make it's weekly downtown in-roads. Material, which had become engrossed in studio experimentation, soon started recording hip-hop, and in '82 Herbie Hancock proposed that they make a hip-hop track for him to play keyboard over. Bisi and Material soon recorded the song "Rockit." It became the first top 40 song to feature scratching, and won Hancock a Grammy in '84. All this action in hip-hop, including work with Afrika Bambaata, drew Sonic Youth to Bisi, and they sought him out specifically as a hip-hop producer for their records Evol and Bad Moon Rising. Around this time Bisi broke off with Laswell and Material, but he kept the studio and re-named it BC Studio. The studio flourished, recording nascent indie rock acts as well as industrial and more aggressive fare. Notorious avant-rock provocateurs Foetus, Swans, Cop Shoot Cop, Live Skull, Unsane and Alice Donut all did multiple recordings with Bisi.

In '88 Bisi and Laswell re-formed Material intermittently as a production team, and were sought out by The Ramones, Iggy Pop and White Zombie. They produced many notable World Music recordings as well, including a Ginger Baker solo album (Middle Passage), and a Material album (The Road To The Western Lands) which put some William Burroughs' readings into an electro-world context. Around '90, John Zorn, now a major avant garde icon tapped Bisi to record many albums of himself and for his label, most notably: Zorn's Spy vs. Spy, Naked City's Torture Garden, and The Boredom's Wow2. The late 90's brought projects to BC Studio with a distinct Eastern European flavor such as Barbez, culminating in the near mainstream success of The Dresden Dolls in '03. In '05, shoegazer sensations Serena Maneesh mixed their debut at BC Studio to widespread acclaim.

Bisi has recorded and released six albums and EP's of his original work since the late 80s.

Press quotes over the years

Alternative Press: "Inspiring material that hits an emotional nerve not often struck"

NME: "Martin Bisi is one of New York's brightest talents"

CMJ: "Far from what's today considered "typical" college spin material -but of course that's all the more reason to give it an ear."

Melody Maker: "A raw untreated sewage-farm of ideas bursting with mutant life"

Billboard: "From the harmonic poetry of Sonic Youth's "EVOL" to the harrowing excess of Live Skull's "Dusted" to the scorched-earth metal-jazz of Last Exit's "Iron Path", the music documented by Bisi at BC Studio reflects a kindred urban spirit." [..] "At BC Studio, the artistic, bohemian atmosphere is palpable. A band's personality mixes with the essence of the space."

Tape Op: "[Bisi's studio] continues to be a sought after studio, for the added perspective and genius that Bisi brings to his subjects." .. "[Bisi' band] is utterly individualistic and ought to stand alone as a kind of aesthetic studio list. Instead of gear, it's like an audio spreadsheet of everything that's come through BC Studio, edited and processed only by Bisi's subconscious."

Alternative Press - interview question: "Part of your sound seems to be chaos and confusion"

Seconds: "Torn between his artsy South American upbringing and his Lower East Side scumbag alliances, Bisi blurs the lines between both worlds and stirs our nation's melting pot one step closer to Armageddon"

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