Avant-Garde

Formed in 2006, Normal Love is a Philadelphia-based instrumental quintet which comprises amplified violin, two electric guitars, electric bass, and drums. The band's music generally has a loud and brutal aesthetic with compositional influences ranging from African minimalism to serialism to death metal, but rarely within the same piece. Normal Love's debut album was released by High Two Recordings in November 2007.

George Carl Johann Antheil (June 8, 1900, Trenton, New Jersey – 12 February 1959, New York City) was an American avant-garde composer and pianist. His technique was loud, brazen, and percussive. Critics wrote that he hit the piano rather than played it, and indeed he often injured himself by doing so. Audiences in Budapest got so restless sometimes that Antheil would pull a pistol from his jacket and lay it on the piano to make people pay attention.

Jeremiah Cymerman is a remarkable clarinetist and conceptualist who now resides in Brooklyn. He has performed and recorded with Matt Welch, Sam Kulik, Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone among many others. The bulk of his work centers around creating a new language for the clarinet through extended techniques and the manipulation of microphone placement and Pro Tools editing. His debut album, In Memory of the Labyrinth System (2008), presents several radical studio compositions that take the sonic language of the clarinet to some startling and surprising places.

http://www.myspace.com/queenofswordssound
London, UK
2007