IN PRAISE OF DEAD GODS – Divine hymns to raw existence! Here are four outsider musicians and songwriters who slyly warp the classical music performance vocabulary into a solemn music of existential horror, longing and melancholy. Curated from across the national stage and brought together here for the first time, these artists suggest an emergence of a new coalescence on the underground music landscape. That is: a queer and critical reverence for Western classical music that comes out of DIY and underground metal music subcultures. Discriminating aesthetes and sullen KVLT hordes to the front! Let darkness descend!

featuring:

songwriter and conceptual performance artist
Dorian Wood (Los Angeles),
voice, piano, accordian

Doom Metal chamber group
Disemballerina (Portland, OR),
viola, harp, guitar, cello, mandola, bandola, bajo quinto, analog tape loop

avant crooner and balladeer
CHRISTRAPER SINGS (San Francisco, CA),
voice, electronics, piano

gothic countertenor and chanteur
M. Lamar (New York, NY),
voice, piano”

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BIOS

Dorian Wood:

Artist/musician Dorian Wood is “armed with a vocal charisma that would befit a preacher and an experimental streak that would make avant-garde-ists swoon” (WNYC Culture). He has captivated audiences on street corners, in concert halls and performance spaces throughout the US, Mexico and Europe, both as a solo performer and as a member of the 30-piece experimental orchestra, Killsonic. In 2010, Dorian received critical praise for his performance and his “picture perfect” art direction (Los Angeles Times) in the Killsonic opera, Tongues Bloody Tongues, presented at the REDCAT in Los Angeles. Dorian has previously performed at LACMA, UCLA, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Highways Performance Space, Pacific Design Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco) and several other spaces worldwide. His latest album, “Brutus”, was recorded live at St. Giles-in-the-Fields in London, during his spring 2010 European tour. He is currently working on a new studio album, entitled “Rattle Rattle”, which is due for release in November of this year.

 

Disemballerina:

Disemballerina’s core commiserated and lit their first floor candles in 2009 with a friendship sparked between guitarist Ayla Holland and violist/harpist Myles Donovan. Veterans of many louder bands over the years in the D.I.Y. Metal scene on both coasts, the two bonded over a shared love of chamber music, funereal doom and ritualistic ceremony as well as a mutual estrangement in their participating subcultures due to being out, freakish and queer. Originally a 3 piece joined by cellist Melissa Collins, the band has gone through a number of other string players over the years, most recently collaborating with Lost Lockets violinist Fiona Petra. Disemballerina composed an intro for thrash metal band Order of The Gash on their last LP, and has played shows at locations as varied as abandoned train cars, warehouses and outdoor gazebos. They are consistently booked as the acoustic “calm before the storm” at Metal bar shows. Based out of Portland, OR; they have acquired an international ‘KVLT’ fan-base and draw instrumental inspiration from themes such as Datura poisoning, nursing home dementia, Saturn returning, an herbal combination that made graverobbing possible during times of the plague, playing a disgusting crone in dungeons and dragons, gender roles explored in some of the later Oz books, and gay 9 year olds committing suicide.

 

M. Lamar:

After dropping out of Yale School of Art, M. Lamar began extensive operatic training as a countertenor and started several rock bands