Dead Air Fresheners
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The Dead Air Fresheners are a Portland, Oregon and Olympia, Washington-based experimental musical group with a somewhat fluctuating membership. They have been described by Portland's KPSU as "A long-time mainstay of the Experimental Rock Scene."[1]
Because of their penchant for anonymity, masks, and costumes,[1][2][3] there is no definitive list of the group's membership.[4] Nonetheless, several publications covering either the experimental music scene or entertainment in the Pacific Northwest have reported them to have included at various times members of such bands as Olympia's now defunct Karp, Austin, Texas's ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Bellingham, Washington's Noggin, and Portland, Oregon's Nice Nice.[5][6] In Signum magazine, writer Tiffany Lee Brown implies strongly that Olympia Experimental Music Festival founder Jim McAdams is one of the anonymous musicians in the group.[7] Matt Driscoll of the Weekly Volcano (South Puget Sound) states this outright.[8]
The band formed around 1996.[9] They claim to have first formed "in a dilapidated beachfront mansion on the Eld Inlet in Thurston County, Washington"[4] (Eld Inlet is the site of The Evergreen State College[10]); in any event, they first performed publicly in the late 1990s at Olympia, Washington's annual Olympia Experimental Music Festival.[4]
Their instrumentation has been known to include Moog synthesizer, and tape samples, drums, ambient vocals, distorted feedback, electric guitar, computers and digital toys, and digeridoo.[9] The Dead Air Fresheners state in interviews and on their My Space page that they do not play improvised music despite frequent perceptions to the contrary.[4] Rather they use a process of Chance Music composition influenced by the work of John Cage (also called Indeterminate music) and their My Space page provides several examples of scores from past performances.
They have done several live radio performances; portions of their hour-long session with poet Chuck Swaim on KEXP's "Sonarchy Radio" were included as songs in the self-released album Pleasure Is Where All Labor Ends[11] and two performances on KPSU are on that station's archives.[12]
Contents |
[edit] Discography
- I Try To Show My Love, Plastic Duck Records, 1999
- Verses of Echo, Bastard Customer, and Pleasure Is Where All Labor Ends, with poet Chuck Swaim, (self-released) 2001-2003
- An Ulcer is a String of Pearls, 2006, Kill Pop Tarts (CDR-ep)
- a Slip Inside the Quiet Room, 2007, Icky Recordings[5]
Also included in compilations:
- Infamous Polywogs Vol. 1?, Inlet Recordings, 2002
- Infamous Polywogs Vol. 2?, Kill Pop Tarts, 2004
- Reek of Influence, Icky Recordings, 2006
Source for discography (except as noted): [9]
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b The Dead Air Fresheners... LIVE!, KPSU, April 25, 2006. Accessed online 17 September 2007.
- ^ Blanchard 2007 quotes one member as saying, "Our goal is to completely lose all identity within the Dead Air Freshener experience… While we have nothing against pop culture per se, or groups built around the cult of personality, we are trying to achieve the total opposite."
- ^ Brown 2007, page 3.
- ^ a b c d Blanchard 2007
- ^ a b Rate Your Music Dead Air Fresheners Band Page, [1].
- ^ Driscoll 2008
- ^ Brown 2007, page 2, page 3.
- ^ Driscoll 2008
- ^ a b c Portland Mercury staff 2007
- ^ Campus Master Plan 1998, The Evergreen State College. Accessed online 17 September 2007.
- ^ Doug Haire discography, accessed online 17 September 2007. Swaim's name is incorrectly given there as "Swaims".
- ^ Recordings by Dead Air Fresheners on the KPSU archives, accessed online 18 September 2007.
[edit] References
- Blanchard, Josh (January 11 - January 17, 2007), We, Anonymous: The Secret History of Dead Air Fresheners, Portland Mercury, <http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=104475&category=22153>. Retrieved on 17 September 2007.
- Brown, Tiffany Lee (2007), Bleepy-Bloopy Noises: Creepy-crawly creatures emerge for the Olympia Experimental Music Festival, vol. Issue 12, Signum magazine, <http://www.incunabula.org/signum/Issue12/marrow/Oly/oly.html>. Retrieved on 17 September 2007.
- Driscoll, Matt (2008), Air Fresheners 7 on 7 and others: EXPERIMENTAL dead air fresheners, South Puget Sound: Weekly Volcano, <http://www.weeklyvolcano.com/2008-01-10/critics-choice/1666/Dead Air Fresheners>. Retrieved on 2 February 2008.
- Portland Mercury staff (2007), band page for Dead Air Fresheners, <http://classifieds.portlandmercury.com/portland/ViewBand?oid=oid%3A113613>. Retrieved on 17 September 2007.
[edit] External links
- Dead Air Fresheners MySpace page
- Recordings by Dead Air Fresheners on the KPSU archives.
- KMLP archive including a 2002 performance by the Dead Air Fresheners. Archived on the Internet Archive February 10, 2006.
