385:"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."
390:"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."
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and rudimentary beats. Other musicians, Including Hector
Becerra, a noted NYC session drummer who played on Taylor Dayne's tour, and Manny Oquendo, who had been a Midimation client with the LES group "Hallucination Station", began jamming with Adams during his sets, and Byzar began to grow into a fluid collective. Miguel Lopez, an NYU grad who also worked as an engineer, offered after-hours studio time at Mike Thorne's "Stereo Society Studios", home of Softcell, and the Byzar began intensive studio experimentation.
85:, 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.
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Abstrakt Lounge and
Molecular were part of a network of happenings and events, including the Abstrakt Wave, founded by Tim Sweet in a performance lounge called the RV on NYC's Lower East Side, where Adams began performing as an 'ambient DJ', playing the byzar soundscapes layered with other records
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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
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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
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Another regular performer & collaborator at
Abstract Wave, composer and electric midi violinist Karthik Swaminathan, was referred by NYU classmate Lucy Walker, and he and Adams recorded their first collaboration for Elliot Sharp's State of the Union compilation. As Byzar expanded, Karthik
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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brought in jam collaborators & performance artists Laura Marie
Williams and Karl Francke to add visual, performance and sonic elements to Byzar's live show.
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Akin Adams : electronic & acoustic rhythms, electronic guitar, effects and live mixing, codenamed 'Quantyk' for his focus on all things rhythmic
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studio mixing techniques to their live performances, and varied atmospheric textures with polyrhythmic electronic dance music.
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Hector
Becerra : live drums, processed acoustic & vocal effects, codenamed 'Elektryk' as a contrast to 'Acoustyk'
262:. Adams designed and managed a 50,000 watt multi-zone integrated soundsystem for the Creative Time Soundlab event at the
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Karthik
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Byzar also designed multimedia performance installations and site transformations, including "Resonatryx" at
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644:"AceView: Gene:byzar, a comprehensive annotation of human, mouse and worm genes with mRNAs or ESTsAceView"
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Byzar intentionally designed their vinyl releases for play at different speeds. British Radio One DJ
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Many of the soundscapes were created using antiquated state-of-the-art technology, such as the
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collective, active in the New York experimental dance/electronic music scene during the 1990s.
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Shapiro, P.: "the
Illbient Alliance" , ' ' Wire Magazine ' ' , issue 154, December 1996
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called "Darth Vader vs. The Sugar Plum
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Karl Francke : harmonica and custom analog synth/oscilloscope controller
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In 2009, Adams revived the Byzar brand for a remix of "Fungirl" by the
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at the "3 of Cups" basement lounge in New York's East Village in 1993.
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on the music for her 3-D work "Nirvana", which was featured in the
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in 1996, which attracted over 6000 people. Working with promoter
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organ. Adams played guitar in an experimental rock trio called
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have been references to a new album, "Polykronyk 13:20".
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Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music - Google Boeken
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to a mutant hip-hop beat, then blending Tchaikovsky's
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182:often played Byzar's records at different speeds.
321:Byzar was featured on the cover of issue #154 of
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26:ensemble, considered one of the founders of the
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362:There is a human gene named after Byzar.
438:"This Is Home Entertainment: Volume One"
167:modular analog synthesizer featured in
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450:"Incursions In Illbient" compilation (
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770:Musical groups from New York (state)
464:"Necropolis: The Dialogic Project" (
406:Beings from the B'yond Within, Vol.1
534:. Bostonphoenix.com. Archived from
457:"This is Jungle Sky, Vol.6, Funk" (
310:directed an avant-garde video for "
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16:American electronic music ensemble
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620:. My.execpc.com. Archived from
416:Gaiatronyk vs. the Cheap Robots
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264:Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage
169:Softcell's "Tainted Love"
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77:lived in the nearby
224:Anti-Pop Consortium
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646:. Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
576:. Creativetime.org
459:Jungle Sky Records
444:Home Entertainment
433:Compilation albums
376:festival in 2009.
119:Manny Oqeundo aka
30:genre, along with
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112:Members include:
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395:Discography
308:Lucy Walker
286:Debut album
256:The Kitchen
240:Mariko Mori
232:Alec Empire
228:Vernon Reid
212:Micah Gaugh
208:Ras Mesinai
196:Vernon Reid
142:Lucy Walker
79:Gas Station
57:Mikey Dread
759:Categories
693:2014-05-20
689:. AllMusic
671:2014-05-20
650:2014-05-20
628:2014-05-20
603:2014-05-20
580:2014-05-20
542:2014-05-20
532:"Illbient"
517:2014-05-20
473:References
204:Marc Ribot
173:Synclavier
42:Background
374:Artomatic
370:Jessica 6
348:John Peel
222:from the
200:DJ Spooky
180:John Peel
134:Kit Krash
75:DJ Spooky
69:DJ Spooky
32:DJ Spooky
775:Illbient
558:Archived
236:DJ Krush
192:Soundlab
171:and the
100:applied
36:Soundlab
28:Illbient
745:Discogs
276:Prodigy
272:The Orb
218:" with
155:Methods
108:Members
61:KRS-One
49:Farfisa
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461:) 1998
336:mashup
312:Phylyx
220:Priest
216:Yaizon
121:MegMan
67:, aka
741:Byzar
165:Serge
97:Byzar
53:S*A*M
20:Byzar
506:ISBN
210:and
59:and
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316:Amp
102:dub
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