Controlled Bleeding
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Controlled Bleeding is an experimental band originally formed in Boston around 1978 by Paul Lemos, Jack Salerno and Dave Southerland. Later, returning to Massapequa, New York, Lemos joined forces with old school chums, Gary Pecorino and Tony Meola in the first recorded version of the band, creating instrumental music that has been described as a collision between The Ramones and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. Their blazing performances at CBGB's and Stony Brook University in the early '80s, along with various demos, were collected on a long out of print Dutch LP issued under the name BODY SINK.
Pecorino and Lemos would soon part ways due to musical differences over the presence of the three hundred pound scat singing eccentric that is Joe Papa. (Papa answered an ad for a singer in a local music paper, since the group was getting frustrated by the lack of response to their instrumental exercises). With the addition of Chris Moriarty on drums and a few other players, the band continued briefly, but soon imploded after their first disastrous show with the new expanded line up.
Frustrated working with others, Lemos soon started venting his inner poisons through solo experiments in pure screaming cacophony, first documented on the SWALLOWING SCRAP METAL cassette compilation issued in 1982. After receiving encouraging response to these first noise experiments, Lemos recruited Moriarty and Papa once more and soon embarked on a violent creative course that resulted in cassette releases on early noise labels like BROKEN FLAG, XXX, and SWINGING AXE. The band's classic first album, KNEES AND BONES which now stands as one of the earliest documents of American power electronics, was issued in 1983.
Through the course of the next few years, the group would issue a number of varied releases, moving away from pure noise into more textural areas. Albums like BODY SAMPLES, CURD, SONGS FROM THE DRAIN, and CORE capture the group's raw, increasingly sophisticated aesthetic, blending elements of noise, prog rock, sacred music and musique concrète into something that was very much their own.
Although most of their music has been fiercely experimental, Controlled Bleeding did work with WaxTrax! and Roadrunner Records, issuing a handful of very visible, intensely rhythmic records. Recordings like TRUDGE and PENETRATION document this period and have dated surprisingly well. Unfortunately, these more commercial endeavors never sat well with Lemos, and he soon moved away from the commercial marketplace almost entirely, issuing dark sonic experiments like those found on the group's best works, THE DROWNING, INANITION, and THE POISONER CDs. Moriarty would soon leave the fold to pursue his own music in Body Clock, while, Lemos and Papa would continue developing music of mournful, spiritual depth (MUSIC FOR STOLEN ICON ll, GOLGOTHA CDs).
Although various side projects came and went through the years (Joined at the Head, Fat Hacker, In Blind Embrace, and Skin Chamber), Controlled Bleeding still exists and will issue some massive ARCHIVE projects in 2007, and possibly a new album early in 2008. An eight CD BOX set will appear from the Hong Kong based label ULTRA MAIL PROD, containing material from the early days in Boston (1977) to the present, and a five LP BOX set from Germany's VINYL ON DEMAND label will gather old and brand new music from the vaults. Also in the works is a CD reissue of the long out of print KNEES AND BONES.
Meanwhile, Lemos and Papa, along with RUINS drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, have immersed themselves in the free jazz madness that is THE BREASTFED YAK. Their debut CD, GET YOUR GREASY HEAD OFF THE SHAM, was released by Birdman Records a few years ago and remains one of the most completely OUT musical experiences you are bound to encounter. Bleeding fans generally despise it, but Lemos feels it's his finest work to date... (All of the band's current releases will soon be available on iTunes).
Controlled Bleeding's sound is confusingly varied from album to album and has contained elements of dub, free jazz, noise, prog, sacred music, dark ambient, classical and musique concrète. To their own detriment, the group has never cared much about generating or maintaining an audience, but just sort of does whatever inspires them in the moment.
[edit] Discography
- Wall of China Love Letters (SoupTime, 1981)
- Lung Ties (as Body Sink), (Eksakt Records, 1985)
- Body Samples (Dossier, 1985)
- Knees & Bones (Psychout Productions, 1985)
- Between Tides (Multimood, 1986)
- Core (Subterranean Records, 1986)
- Curd (Dossier, 1986)
- Halved (split LP with Maybe Mental) (Placebo Records, 1986)
- Headcrack (Sterile Records, 1986)
- Music From The Scourging Ground (Sub Rosa,1987)
- Songs From The Drain (Dossier, 1987)
- Music For Guilded Chambers (Sub Rosa, 1988)
- Songs From The Ashes (C'est La Mort, 1989)
- The Fodder Song (Wax Trax, 1989)
- Songs From The Grinding Wall (Wax Trax, 1989)
- Gag (Materiali Sonori, 1990)
- Hog Floor (A Fractured View) (Subterranean Records, 1990)
- Phlegm Bag Spattered (Dark Vinyl Records, 1990)
- Trudge (Wax Trax, 1990)
- Golgotha (Staalplaat, 1991)
- Bladder Bags And Interludes (Vanilla Records, 1992)
- Penetration (Third Mind Records, 1992)
- Pets For Meat / The Gylsboda Snake (Musical Tragedies, 1994)
- Songs From The Vault (Dark Vinyl Records, 1994)
- The Drowning (Dark Vinyl Records, 1994)
- Dub Songs From A Shallow Grave (Nuclear Blast, 1995)
- Inanation (Hypnotic, 1996)
- Songs from the Shadows (as In Blind Embrace), (Death Factory, 1996)
- Night Shadows (split LP with Dive) (Fast forward Recordings, 1996)
- Gilded Shadows (Hypnotic, 1997)
- The Poisoner (Soleilmoon, 1997)
- Our Journey's End (Materiali Sonori, 2000)
- Can You Smell The Rain Between (Tone Casualties, 2000)
- Shanked And Slithering (Hospital Recordings, 2005)
