Balance Point Acoustics : Damon Smith

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Featured CD:

Firestorm is an intense and musically assaultive release of killer, balls-out free jazz that will appeal to those who long for the most bombasic works of Broetzmann, Ayler, Takayanagi and Cecil Taylor! This release reveals many shades of intensity and mood while remaining frenzied and inventive at all times. Featuring Taylor alumni Marco Eneidi (alto), Marc Edwards (drums), Lisle Ellis (bass), Elliott Levin (tenor), Sun Ra Arkestra legend Marshall Allen (alto), bassist Damon Smith and manic Austrian reedist Mario Rechtern, Firestorm is a delerious concoction of new energy music that pushes beyond the stratosphere of sound!

You can send a paypal for $15 pp to damon@balancepointacoustics.com If you would like one. Buy This CD

A few copies of "Healing Force" are available You can send a paypal for $15 pp to damon@balancepointacoustics.com If you would like one.

Vinny Golia-reeds
Aurora Josephson-voice
Henry Kaiser-guitar
Mike Keneally-piano, guitar and voice
Joe Morris-guitar and double bass
Damon Smith-double bass
Weasel Walter-drums

Seven major figures from the art-punk, free-jazz, brutal prog, improvisational and modern jazz world come together for a ROCKING tribute to the unfairly ignored, misunderstood and vilified late period works of Albert Ayler. These late period songs have always seemed to me like they may have been some of the most personally spritually resonant for Ayler, but the musicians and the culture of the late 1960s were possibly not able to successfully translate and perform his concept of spirituality, free jazz, boogaloo, nursery rhythms, marching bands, blues and r'n'b, and certainly the free-jazz following public was not ready to accept it. Now, 40 years and many stylistic mash-ups later, perhaps these works can be better enjoyed.

“Albert Ayler's later works (Love Cry, New Grass and Music is the Healing Force of the Universe) seem to be generally reviled. Through meditations, dreams, and visions, the players on this project were given the message to once again attempt to send the people of earth a message of love, peace, and spiritual understanding. We selected a representative set of tunes for this material and essentially let it play itself through us. We hope you will be as surprised as we still are by the results of this invocational experiment. We hope you will like this record.”
- Henry Kaiser, producer and guitarist Buy This CD

Limited copies of the "Noisy People" dvd are available here. It is a Film by Tim Perkis featuing Damon Smith and other Bay Area Musicians. Includes footage of Gratkowski/Bryerton/Smith and Wolfgang Fuchs' Six Fuchs Project. Buy This CD

Improvised music form Oakland and Tel Aviv from the Jerusalem based Kadima Label.
Aurora Josephson - voice
Ariel Shibolet - soprano saxophone
Jen Baker - trombone
Scott R. Looney - piano
Damon Smith - double bass Buy This CD

"Ghetto Caylpso" Peter Kowald/Marco Eneidi/Damon Smith/Spirit out now on NOTTWO records. Buy This CD

New from Nuscope Records: Biggi Vinkeloe, alto saxophone, flute; Damon Smith, double-bass; Kjell Nordeson, drums, vibraphone Buy This CD

Forthcoming CD's

BPA 013 "Pepper Spray" Ariel Shibolet/Jen Baker/Damon Smith/Jerome Bryerton

Bertram Turetzky/Damon Smith ThoughtBeetle

"Cruxes"
Players: Josephson/Leandre/Smith/Blume
Reviewed by: Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic
This latest offering on Damon Smith's Balance Point Acoustics imprint, like its immediate predecessor Sperrgut, features the Bay Area bassist in the company of German percussionist Martin Blume. They're joined by Aurora Josephson on vocals – her linocuts also grace the album's back tray and booklet – and French bassist (and occasional manic vocalist herself) Joëlle Léandre, who was paying a return visit to Oakland's Mills College when this was recorded in October 2004. Léandre's background in contemporary classical music, which included notable friendships with Giacinto Scelsi and John Cage, will be familiar to readers of these pages, and, in conjunction with Josephson's occasional well-rounded soprano, it adds a touch of conservatory gravitas to Cruxes, notably on the drone that opens the closing "Hodie Mihi, Cras Tibi!", one of four tracks recorded live at the Berkeley Art Centre. Three of the eight studio takes recorded the day before are duets – the Smith / Léandre bass battle on "Siberia of the Mind" is particularly exciting – and Blume sits out the trio, "Scriabin the Derailer", which begins with Smith and Léandre slashing out into space with their bows. A fitting metaphor for the two bass jousts that characterise the album as a whole. It's a subtle, supple set of pieces, but despite the fact she has a pretty voice I'm not entirely convinced by what Josephson is doing when things really get swinging on "Tanglefoot Flypaper". She sounds more at ease on the live cuts, which also feature some splendid arco interplay between the bassists – and don't fall for that dumb old line that Léandre's the "classical" player and Smith the "jazzman", because it doesn't work like that – as ever tastefully accompanied by Blume's meticulous pointillism.–DW