12.21.12

The third installlment in the Synthetic Biology trilogy, Synthetic Biology III: Biopocalypse/Biogenesis, by Rubber Band Banjo is out now!

12.09.12

The Drop the Space Needle from Von Sleight has unfortunately been delayed until early 2013. Will post an update soon.

07.08.12

The sixth Von Sleight album, Drop the Space Needle, will be out on on 11/11/12! The video for "We Are Supersonic" is now live and guaranteed to cause mass confusion and hysteria due to its excessive ridiculousness. The video follows Chief Seattle's voyage to rescue a basketball team on Planet Supersonic in his Space Needle UFO. See for yourself and let us know what you think.

PRE-ORDER the digital album from Bandcamp for $5 to get a free download of the "We Are Supersonic" track or PRE-ORDER the album package for $20 that includes the CD + Digital Album + T-shirt (below) + other goodies. You can also purchase shirts with this and other designs at our Spreadshirt t-shirt shop.

Press release: The sixth Von Sleight album, Drop the Space Needle, will be out on 11/11/12 on Fringe Biology Recordings. Tracks from this album were constructed by dropping old works into new environments, making sculptures from heaps of rusted scraps. The sounds range from the pulsing synth-tribal-disco-funk rhythms of the lead cut "We Are Supersonic" to the industrial funk of "Chief Seattle and the B-Ball Caper" to the hypnotic ambient jazz of "King Salmon Needs Another Beer." Instruments employed include the Korg MS-20 and Electribe EA-1 synths, bass guitar, trumpet, 3-stringed and rubber band zithers, voice, natural recordings, electronic drums, and electrified homemade instruments.

12.21.11

It's been awhile and we've been quiet, but that's only because things are brewing and transformations are slow. We're working on practicing our chops and advanced audio production tricks, designing a new logo and website, and many new releases are in the works. There will most certainly be new full-length releases from Rubber Band Banjo, Von Sleight, Revolutionary Cells, Bocinas, and some new artists in 2012. In the meantime, we have a free album to give you as an early Christmas present and thanks for being a fan. The album is Junk DNA: B-sides and Rarities, Volume 1 from Rubber Band Banjo and is recommended for fans of the Hypermutator and Gather Your Junk Together albums. The secret download link is available from our Facebook page only and we would love it if you want to follow us there to hear about all the action in 2012 (also with posts on what music we're listening to).

Press release:

To celebrate 10 years of the existence of Rubber Band Banjo, we scavenged the vaults for audio scraps and oddities from the early years. The result is the first volume of Junk DNA: B-sides and Rarities from 2001-2005, playing mostly in reverse chronological order starting with Hypermutator-era B-sides and ending with the ultra-rare first Rubber Band Banjo EP, Loop Humor Therapy. This EP was previously described as follows: "A wretched EP was created with the demo version of a cheap program in four days flat. It sounds somewhere in between the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack, video game music, and Mr. Bungle gone horribly wrong." Some of these tracks on Junk DNA: B-Sides and Rarities, Volume 1 were secretly released via hidden website links for album purchasers and some were only exchanged among friends, who promptly threw them in the trash. Highlights from this album include "Who Gets the Deer?" (the hillbilly-meets-drum 'n' bass track featuring samples of a 911 call where a redneck hits a deer in his car and encounters a hungry dog), "Vishnu's Revenge" (not-so-traditional Indian music), "Weapons Expert" (techno collage music), and "Sitar Crunch" (the first Rubber Band Banjo track EVER). We hope you are as embarrassed listening to these tracks as Rubber Band Banjo is releasing them.

Also, check out the "Who Gets the Deer?" video, unearthed from 2005. It's as embarrassing as it gets.

06.02.11

We're finally on SoundCloud! Listen to some Fringe Grooves...

Fringe Grooves by fringebiologyrecordings

01.10.11

The title track from New Kraut by Von Sleight was played on KEXP in Seattle!

12.20.10

We're excited to announce that our first compilation, Fringe Grooves, is now available as a FREE download with album artwork! This compilation features 14 tracks from 7 different artists: Von Sleight, Rubber Band Banjo, Revolutionary Cells, Machines For Hire, Bocinas, Mutant Microbes, and Borg and the Ultimate Seeds. The styles on this compilation include experimental rock, avant electronic, sci-fi soundtrack, krautrock, science music, space rock, post punk, jazz, avant rock, early industrial, black and avant-garde metal, progressive rock, psychedelic, cut-ups, soundscapes, pop, and dub. A limited number of 6-panel digipaks are currently in production and will be soon available for FREE at several record stores in the following cities: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Austin. Stay tuned for a record store list. You can also pre-order the CD here.

12.19.10

Our 12th release is the album "Ba" by Revolutionary Cells, a Seattle-based experimental rock/metal band combining disparate musical elements from progressive rock, post punk, black metal, noise, hip hop, krautrock, and dub. Press release:

In the spring of 2010, Revolutionary Cells began a series of recording sessions that would become the Barium/Buenos Aires ("Ba") album, a two-part, ten-song collection of songs ranging from spacious ambient tracks driven by tremolo guitar, insistent synthesizers and hypnotic bass lines to propulsive black metal/noise rock, to post punk grooves augmented with krautrock-style rhythms, to machine-like marches, to dissonant soundscapes. Thematically, Barium/Buenos Aires draws inspiration from Cold War geopolitics, the history of 1970s terrorist organizations, the speculative literature of J.G. Ballard and Jorge Luis Borges, urban decay and science run amok-this reflects their backgrounds in biology and the humanities. The overall mood of the recording is laid back paranoia.

12.18.10

New release: "64 Years Into the Terrifying Future" EP by Bocinas, a Cincinnati duo that make space-age rock and electronic music that melt your speakers. This is their third EP that combines bass guitar, electronic drums, synthesizers, and found sounds.

11.24.10

Hilarious review of New Kraut on Redefine Mag and a "B+" rating! The rhythm section was apparently drinking too much Belgian beer during the recording sessions. Oops.

10.18.10

Von Sleight shares the story behind New Kraut on antimusic.com and of their musical advisor, who is, in fact, a cat.

A nice review of Synthetic Biology on Side-Line magazine! "The entire concept behind this project is rather complex and pretty crazy, but the composition deserves a special mention for its originality in ambient progressive music!"

The 2010 University of British Columbia iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine competition) team featured artwork from our Synthetic Biology album in their art gallery. Cool!

Lastly, lots of radio play of Synthetic Biology on Don Campau's No Pigeonholes show.

10.10.10

New Kraut is ready and it's delicious!

09.19.10

The fifth Von Sleight album, New Kraut, will be released on 10/10/10 for our 10th release! This album takes the avant-electronic, jazz, space rock, and warped pop styles from previous albums and infuses these sounds with Krautrock and dub. The result is something like the analog tape recordings of Neu! being accidentally spliced together with Hawkwind, Cluster, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Miles Davis, and The Residents. The instruments used on this album include Korg MS-20, fretless bass, Electribe, trumpet, electronic and analog drums, Kaossilator, and MIDI instruments. The video for the title track follows a UFO that delivers New Kraut to the good people of earth. Like a virus from outer space, the New Kraut is discovered and gets propagated into supermarkets for mass commercialization. New Kraut is not a sandwich, it's a casserole. If you pre-order the CD before 10/10/10 you will receive a FREE limited edition New Kraut DVD. Watch the video here:

08.18.10

Check out this awesome review of Synthetic Biology from Penny Black Music! Here's another review from Leicester Bangs.

06.21.10

iTunes review of Synthetic Biology: "RBB make music from sounds that might have been organic at one time but now have cybernetic enhancements bolted on to replace missing limbs. These hybrid sounds stride a landscape of shadowy and malicious intent, mixing, dancing, and fighting to unstoppable beats. There is almost no cowbell."

06.05.10

Synthetic Biology is now available for purchase at two great Seattle record stores: Dissonant Plane and Sonic Boom in Ballard.

04.19.10

The new EP from Mutant Microbes is now available as a FREE download! EP description: A cut-up experiment where tiny fragments of audio are mangled and reassembled into Mutant Microbes. Styles include post-punk mixed with early industrial, avant garde metal mashup, Norwegian icy jazz, and cracked-out pop.

Also, our other holiday gift to you is that for one week only you can download Borg and the Ultimate Seeds for FREE by clicking on this direct link and then you can download the .zip file towards the bottom of the page.