C/A/T

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C/A/T
C/A/T member Ben Arp.
C/A/T member Ben Arp.
Background information
Origin United States
Genre(s) Industrial, Rhythmic Noise
Years active 1998-Present
Label(s) Crunch Pod
Members
Ben Arp, Kat (live only)
Former members
Malice, Glytch

C/A/T, simply pronounced cat, is the Folsom, California based industrial band created by film and sound engineer and founder of the Crunch Pod music label and distribution, Ben Arp, back in 1998. Originally based in Davis, California, Arp was active in the Northern California electronic music scene, both as a musician and as a DJ. In these early years Arp released a small number of early C/A/T releases on CD-Rs and various compilations (see below for a list of some of these releases), but it was not until he had moved to Seattle that he began to focus more on the band. Kat Clarke joined Arp in live performances in mid 2005 and then in the studio by late 2005. Blending both rhythmic noise and ambient industrial sounds, C/A/T is popular in US West Coast industrial clubs and radio programs. [1]

Contents

[edit] History

The first two C/A/T albums, Worldwide Totalitarian Control and The Prisoner can be characterized the albums' social and political overtones. Worldwide Totalitarian Control, a 4 track EP, focused on exploring the immediate emotions and reactions in the United States following the 9/11 attacks, by blending (and at times creatively editing) recorded political statements with a range of emotionally driven ambient electronics. The Prisoner continued the expression socio-political themes by incorporating samples from the 1960s television show The Prisoner with more abstract and broken beats.

With the addition of Clarke, C/A/T moved away from political and conspiratorial themes and to a more dance club friendly format as the two worked on C/A/T's third full length release, The Rogue Pair. Serious subjects were not completely abandoned by Arp, who incorporated ideas and sounds similar to the first two C/A/T releases into his sideproject Disclosure. However, the distinction between C/A/T and Disclosure still remains blurred as three of the tracks on Disclosure's album Full Disclosure were remixed and included on The Rogue Pair. The less serious side of C/A/T continued with their ATF EP released on June 6, 2006.

C/A/T released their new album, Point Of No Return, on June 26th of 2007. [2]

Arp mentioned in an interview with VampireFreaks.com [3] that as of September 2007, C/A/T as a live act will only feature Arp and Clarke and the occasional special guest performer at select events.

C/A/T recently mentioned on the band's official MySpace blog that the label has canceled the EP, This Season Of Chaos. C/A/T's upcoming album "The Great Crisis", will be mainly be an instrumental release[1] that will set the back story to "51X" and is the beginning to this new phase of C/A/T. 'The Great Crisis' was released on June 6, 2008 on CD.

[edit] Influences

Early influences include David Thrussell's Black Lung and Snog. Later influences include many of the bands that C/A/T has toured with across the United States and into Mexico, including Caustic, Glis, Hocico, and Manufactura.

C/A/T has been performing live since 1999, where the band participated in California's NorCal NoiseFest '01 and '02. The next major festival C/A/T performed in was the 2005 Providence Industrial Fest IV industrial music festival. C/A/T was invited to perform at the Distorted Music Festival in 2005, however due to last minute work permit issues was not able to perform. C/A/T performed at the 2006 Reverence industrial music festival, held July 21st & 22nd, 2006 in Madison, Wisconsin and at the 2006 Indoctrination festival, held November 3rd, 4th and 5th, 2006 in Chicago, Illinois.

C/A/T was one of the performers for the 2007 edition of the C.O.M.A. Festival in Montreal, Canada.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Full length albums and EPs

  • Worldwide Totalitarian Control EP Crunch Pod (2004)
  • The Prisoner Crunch Pod (2005)
  • The Rogue Pair Crunch Pod (2005)
  • ATF Crunch Pod (2006) -- limited to 666 copies
  • Point Of No Return Crunch Pod (2007)

[edit] Special releases

  • The Prisoner Limited Edition "Liturgy Mixes" Crunch Pod (2005) - limited to 50 copies

[edit] Select Compilation Appearances

  • Sorry on "Depth Of Beyond" (Troniks, 2000)
  • Love Story on "Infinity Paradox" (Fusion Audio Recordings, 2000)
  • The Five Year Plan on "Battery Sentinel 2" (Crunch Pod, 2000)
  • Influx on "Krach Test" (Ad Noiseam, 2001)
  • Dying Morality on "Feedback Loop" (Doppler Effect, 2001)
  • Noizemaker on "Dissonant Structures" (Cranial Fracture Recordings, 2002)
  • First Strike on Dark Pathways Vol. 3 Variant Archive (Crunch Pod, 2003)
  • Cleared Channel on Das Bunker: Fifteen Minutes Into the Future (Das Bunker, 2004)
  • Clonacion Epidemica (vs. H.I.V.+) on "A.L.P.H.A." (Geska Records, 2005)
  • Seditious Minds v.3 on Distorted '05 (Distorted Music Festival, 2005)
  • Liturgy Of The Free (ECC-1:18 Remix by Free Death) on A Mere Invention Of The Idle Mind (Mechanismz / Crunch Pod, 2006)
  • Smashed on Endzeit Bunkertracks: Act II (Alfa Matrix, 2006)
  • Seditious Minds (Remixed by Cacophony) on "Materia Oscura" (Sistinas, 2006)
  • On The Beat on "Bunker 54" (Das Bunker / Mechanismz, 2007)
  • You're Dead To Me (Distorted Truth Mix) on "Soviet Media Kompilation" (Soviet Media Korporation, 2007)
  • Critical on "Materia Fria" (Sistinas / Crunch Pod, 2007)

[edit] Sideprojects

Ben Arp has had a number of sideprojects. The following is a list of the various sideprojects Arp has been involved in along with any releases from those sideprojects:

  • V.S.E.X. [1998-2000]
tracks appear on the compilation "Battery Sentinel" Crunch Pod (1999)
  • Xenium / Coverage [2000-2001]
"Center" Troniks (2000)
track 'Drawing Room Program Error' appears on the compilation "Battery Sentinel 2" Crunch Pod (2000)
  • S3V3R [2004-2005]
remix of C/A/T's 'Reaction' appears on "The Prisoner" Crunch Pod (2005)
  • Disclosure [2005 - Present]
Full Disclosure Crunch Pod (2005)

[edit] Instruments & equipment

Early recordings relied entirely upon hardware equipment such as the Roland Juno 106, Roland JP-8000, Yamaha A3000 and Roland MC-50. Arp gradually moved towards computer based recordings and most of the material from 2004 up through early 2007 was recorded entirely using software; including Propellerhead Reason and Ableton Live.

Arp recently upgraded his studio and is currently using Apple Inc.'s Logic Pro to write new material.

[edit] List of band members

[edit] Studio

  • Ben Arp (1998-present) -- vocals, programming, mixing

[edit] Live

  • Ben Arp (1998-present) -- vocals, programming
  • Kat (2005-present) -- mixing, quality control, live pads, live drums
  • Glytch (2007) -- live keyboards, live pads
  • Malice (2006-2007) - live pads, live drums

[edit] References

  1. ^ C/A/T goes instrumental on 'The Great Crisis'

[edit] External links