these are the First Nine copies of The Core #43 available
April 1 where ever fine Art rags are found.
Each mag has a painting of an Enochian Angel by johannes ayres on it's back page
as well as a CD of cool Musick.
Iao Core is an experimental rock band formed in San Francisco in 1987. Far outside the mainstream (in terms of music and career path), they have released more than 20 albums, have a devoted worldwide following, and tour frequently. Their music touches on classical, electronica, industrial, speed metal with a distinctly experimental/avant-garde bent; The lyrics are in fact superb: out of such pockets light pours, conjuring spirits of an America both mysterious and obscene.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
the First Nine copies of The Core # 43
these are the First Nine copies of The Core #43 available
April 1 where ever fine Art rags are found.
Each mag has a painting of an Enochian Angel by johannes ayres on it's back page
as well as a CD of cool Musick.
Friday, March 26, 2010
What’s that? You say you smell popcorn popping? It might just be the world’s greatest rock band coming to your town. Iao Core is reducing their carbon footprint by fitting the Metaversal Mobile Unit with a new bio-diesel engine and solar panels and batteries which will power our PA system for outside gigs (which we plan to do a lot of this summer). That way, we can all feel good about feeling good, as we bring the ultimate chakra workout to an open field, muddy meadow, or rocky out-cropping near you!
Thursday, March 25, 2010
and yet another review of Funktionlust
here's part of another review from Electronic Cottage…
Everybody always says Iao Core sound like they're on drugs, but I wouldn't know about that kinda thing. To me, they sound like guys who've somehow managed to retain the wide-awake naivety we're all born with. They absorb the fog and dust and snow and thunder-- the simple things that grown-up hands can tarnish -- then turn this scenery into songs that stand on their own, like nature. The band can make you notice virtue and strength in a rotten world, and if they achieve this only by ignoring the forest for the trees, so be it. Any band that can connect crazed bebop-skronk to "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Shes lost control" (like in their live shows) is privy to beautiful truths of which cynics should take heed. My favorite Iao Core CD is pretty much whichever one I'm listening to. Like Armadillidium Vulgare (98) and Doomsday Passes (01), the new Funktionlust is some sideways brand of art rock propelled by Gizmos prickly diamonds -rust guitar and Rimi's jagged hyperfunk bass, with Johannes staking his breathtaking claim to post-industrial -harmony. Funktionlust strikes me as tougher than Doomsday Passes less disjointed than Armadillidium Vulgare and catchier and more intricate than either.The title track kicks off the CD with heavy guitar figures that swirl like rainbows in curved air; "Liquified" ends the disc with a riff-swaggering space-blues that I suppose is the Iao Core's idea of Led Zep (sort of "Out On The Tiles" as done with Faust and Hawkwind). On the desolate plains between the extremes, the Iao Cores stand around staring at the stars, asking questions that have no answers. This music is private, hungry, reassuring, daring, and (despite aforementioned accusations otherwise) never dopey
Everybody always says Iao Core sound like they're on drugs, but I wouldn't know about that kinda thing. To me, they sound like guys who've somehow managed to retain the wide-awake naivety we're all born with. They absorb the fog and dust and snow and thunder-- the simple things that grown-up hands can tarnish -- then turn this scenery into songs that stand on their own, like nature. The band can make you notice virtue and strength in a rotten world, and if they achieve this only by ignoring the forest for the trees, so be it. Any band that can connect crazed bebop-skronk to "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Shes lost control" (like in their live shows) is privy to beautiful truths of which cynics should take heed. My favorite Iao Core CD is pretty much whichever one I'm listening to. Like Armadillidium Vulgare (98) and Doomsday Passes (01), the new Funktionlust is some sideways brand of art rock propelled by Gizmos prickly diamonds -rust guitar and Rimi's jagged hyperfunk bass, with Johannes staking his breathtaking claim to post-industrial -harmony. Funktionlust strikes me as tougher than Doomsday Passes less disjointed than Armadillidium Vulgare and catchier and more intricate than either.The title track kicks off the CD with heavy guitar figures that swirl like rainbows in curved air; "Liquified" ends the disc with a riff-swaggering space-blues that I suppose is the Iao Core's idea of Led Zep (sort of "Out On The Tiles" as done with Faust and Hawkwind). On the desolate plains between the extremes, the Iao Cores stand around staring at the stars, asking questions that have no answers. This music is private, hungry, reassuring, daring, and (despite aforementioned accusations otherwise) never dopey
The Wire reviews Iao Core's Funktionlust CD
The praise and ballyhoo that has been showered upon Funktionlust was encouraging…..here is one of the more flattering reviews from Wire (UK)
Oakland, California may or may not be the arsehole of the universe, but one thing is certain: music of this almost other-worldly nature could not be created within the confines of the civilized world It is music that pleads a kind of lost madness a its guiding inspiration. The Iao Core are a Bay Area cell of post-industrial musicians whose Metaversal Musick CD of last year, "Funktionlust," struck me as a record of almost impossible innovation. For them, there is no possible category. The group take such obvious irreverent delight in so various a panoply of sources that they stake their limits outside the frame of influence itself. A 14-track assault on the history of rock and roll, "Funktionlust" is music of such excessive abandon it leaves the major part of the pop musickal hierarchy looking limp and lost for words. The secret of the Iao Cores is that they are near-virtuosos, the most inspired musicians living under the sun. Guitarist/Vocalist Johannes Ayres is transparently the incarnation of some violent, subliminal force of ecstasy, while Rimi (bass) and noise kitten Nikki (Doomfox) Pesoa are, even hurtling along at breakneck- tempo, as calm and uncluttered as the greatest jazz propeller. Spluttering, electrocuted and creamy, the group are not just on the edge of the industry but on the edge of time itself. From the distance of Europe, of course, this music may seem chaotic. But through it's waves of excess, it discretely drags a swamp of buried myths and frustrations; as an art it is highly controlled. The 14 bursts of noise sound like snippets from an anthology extracted and remixed to bring out their hidden implications of disturbance. The band turn obscure relics of acid rock- psychedlica, like Black Sabbaths' '"War Pigs" into spectral incantations, weird and wistful drifts through the saloon bars of a ghost town. At the same time they sing with a reckless barbarity which all but chokes on its own grotesque appeal to adolescence. The very lack of subtlety in this area becomes a kind of self-defeating aggression, as though the lyrics (printed on a handsheet) were sung intelligibly because only the new Californian street rebels understand such slogans. The lyrics are in fact superb: out of such pockets light pours. In fact, while playing as frenziedly as the hardest, most desperate hardcore, they are simultaneously as loose as the best Californian groups of the late '60s. Conjuring spirits of an America that is both mysterious and obscene, the Iao Core at the same time preserve an essential skepticism. They are highly aware of their audience, its conditioning and its assumptions, and never allow their instruments to form a triumphirate platform for chesty rhetoric. They're as much a part of an antique barroom tradition as the oldest bluesman in Mississippi. Somewhere between Muddy Waters and Throbbing Gristle then, lie Iao Core. They will probably never leave.
Oakland, California may or may not be the arsehole of the universe, but one thing is certain: music of this almost other-worldly nature could not be created within the confines of the civilized world It is music that pleads a kind of lost madness a its guiding inspiration. The Iao Core are a Bay Area cell of post-industrial musicians whose Metaversal Musick CD of last year, "Funktionlust," struck me as a record of almost impossible innovation. For them, there is no possible category. The group take such obvious irreverent delight in so various a panoply of sources that they stake their limits outside the frame of influence itself. A 14-track assault on the history of rock and roll, "Funktionlust" is music of such excessive abandon it leaves the major part of the pop musickal hierarchy looking limp and lost for words. The secret of the Iao Cores is that they are near-virtuosos, the most inspired musicians living under the sun. Guitarist/Vocalist Johannes Ayres is transparently the incarnation of some violent, subliminal force of ecstasy, while Rimi (bass) and noise kitten Nikki (Doomfox) Pesoa are, even hurtling along at breakneck- tempo, as calm and uncluttered as the greatest jazz propeller. Spluttering, electrocuted and creamy, the group are not just on the edge of the industry but on the edge of time itself. From the distance of Europe, of course, this music may seem chaotic. But through it's waves of excess, it discretely drags a swamp of buried myths and frustrations; as an art it is highly controlled. The 14 bursts of noise sound like snippets from an anthology extracted and remixed to bring out their hidden implications of disturbance. The band turn obscure relics of acid rock- psychedlica, like Black Sabbaths' '"War Pigs" into spectral incantations, weird and wistful drifts through the saloon bars of a ghost town. At the same time they sing with a reckless barbarity which all but chokes on its own grotesque appeal to adolescence. The very lack of subtlety in this area becomes a kind of self-defeating aggression, as though the lyrics (printed on a handsheet) were sung intelligibly because only the new Californian street rebels understand such slogans. The lyrics are in fact superb: out of such pockets light pours. In fact, while playing as frenziedly as the hardest, most desperate hardcore, they are simultaneously as loose as the best Californian groups of the late '60s. Conjuring spirits of an America that is both mysterious and obscene, the Iao Core at the same time preserve an essential skepticism. They are highly aware of their audience, its conditioning and its assumptions, and never allow their instruments to form a triumphirate platform for chesty rhetoric. They're as much a part of an antique barroom tradition as the oldest bluesman in Mississippi. Somewhere between Muddy Waters and Throbbing Gristle then, lie Iao Core. They will probably never leave.
Monday, March 22, 2010
What do you mean "Iao Core" ?
The story behind the band's name is a source of
speculation because Johannes has given multiple
explanations behind its origins. Some of the
Acronyms that have appeared in print are:
Is Apocalypse Over-rated? Consult Our Resident Ectoplasma.
Is Artiface Ours? Consider Our Recorded Evidence.
It’s Absurdly Obvious, Converted Occultists Relapse Eventually
I’ve Amplifed Our Carnival Organ’s Resonant Echo
In Assuming Our Collusion, Obsolete Regimes Err.
Invisible Armed Opratives Converge Over Ruined Embassies
also from a review of the "Musick for the Lifeboat" album which appeared in Spun magazine in 1994 comes this possible meaning.........
These last two tracks demonstrate for the first time the formula for which the iao core will use continously throughout their music making career, particularly during the last set of every live show, and that is this; After a rousing rhythmic jam comes the chaotic space improvisation section followed finally and epically with the rebirthing of the Core through rich harmonies and melody laden classics, either covers of others or their own “Hits”.replicating the classic stages of an LSD “trip”, (or sexual release, or spiritual rebirth) it is rumoured that this represnts the “occult” meaning of the word IAO, the unspeakable name of the god of the gnostics.
speculation because Johannes has given multiple
explanations behind its origins. Some of the
Acronyms that have appeared in print are:
Is Apocalypse Over-rated? Consult Our Resident Ectoplasma.
Is Artiface Ours? Consider Our Recorded Evidence.
It’s Absurdly Obvious, Converted Occultists Relapse Eventually
I’ve Amplifed Our Carnival Organ’s Resonant Echo
In Assuming Our Collusion, Obsolete Regimes Err.
Invisible Armed Opratives Converge Over Ruined Embassies
also from a review of the "Musick for the Lifeboat" album which appeared in Spun magazine in 1994 comes this possible meaning.........
These last two tracks demonstrate for the first time the formula for which the iao core will use continously throughout their music making career, particularly during the last set of every live show, and that is this; After a rousing rhythmic jam comes the chaotic space improvisation section followed finally and epically with the rebirthing of the Core through rich harmonies and melody laden classics, either covers of others or their own “Hits”.replicating the classic stages of an LSD “trip”, (or sexual release, or spiritual rebirth) it is rumoured that this represnts the “occult” meaning of the word IAO, the unspeakable name of the god of the gnostics.
thoughts on the Automatic Bluepearl Festival
...still on a natural high from Saturdays Iao Core performance at the Automatic Bluepearl Festival...thanks to all of you who showed up...
I love playing outside to happy people on a beautiful spring day (especially my B-Day)
..the set list:
Jackass (Beck)
Allied Wave Donuts (from Iao Core "Presence")...
Magick Orgasm (new, yet to be recorded)
Vargtimmon (from "Armadillidium Vulgare")
Sequence 333 (new, yet to be recorded)
Solar Angelic (new, y.t.b.r.)
Encanta Pt 1 (from "Armadillidium Vulgare")
Encanta Pt 2 (from "Armadillidium Vulgare")
Pachebel's Canon in D
1st song is in D
2nd in A
3rd in B
4th in Fsharp
5th in G...
6th in D
7th in G
8th in A
finale: Pachebell's Canon in D (which goes D,A,B,Fsharp,G,D,G,A
thus repeating the whole set in one song... )
performing this finale was, I think, one of the most beautiful moments of my life and it brought me to tears in a way which only music can do!
My Gibson's neck broke the day before ("Man, that's your instrument!") I felt so ashamed! So I performed the whole gig with my faithful Stratocaster....and now that i think about it... it was straight into the amp, no digital effects, and it still sounded great.... used the e-bow for Vargtimmon, Sequence 333, and Pachebel.....
I love playing outside to happy people on a beautiful spring day (especially my B-Day)
..the set list:
Jackass (Beck)
Allied Wave Donuts (from Iao Core "Presence")...
Magick Orgasm (new, yet to be recorded)
Vargtimmon (from "Armadillidium Vulgare")
Sequence 333 (new, yet to be recorded)
Solar Angelic (new, y.t.b.r.)
Encanta Pt 1 (from "Armadillidium Vulgare")
Encanta Pt 2 (from "Armadillidium Vulgare")
Pachebel's Canon in D
1st song is in D
2nd in A
3rd in B
4th in Fsharp
5th in G...
6th in D
7th in G
8th in A
finale: Pachebell's Canon in D (which goes D,A,B,Fsharp,G,D,G,A
thus repeating the whole set in one song... )
performing this finale was, I think, one of the most beautiful moments of my life and it brought me to tears in a way which only music can do!
My Gibson's neck broke the day before ("Man, that's your instrument!") I felt so ashamed! So I performed the whole gig with my faithful Stratocaster....and now that i think about it... it was straight into the amp, no digital effects, and it still sounded great.... used the e-bow for Vargtimmon, Sequence 333, and Pachebel.....
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