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

"Ghetto Calypso"
Players: Marco Eneidi/Peter Kowald/Damon Smith/Spirit
Reviewed by: Marc Medwin, Dusted
The Polish NotTwo label has been dropping some fantastic music of late, and this six-year-old session is no exception. The bass duo of Damon Smith and the late Peter Kowald can be heard on Smith’s own Balance Point Acoustics label; this set puts the pair in the company of saxophonist Marco Eneidi and the enigmatic drummer Spirit, whom I’d never heard before. The earthiness of the Smith/Kowald duo is in full effect on tracks like “David, with Bert, plays Mahler” or the title track, both players being rooted in a confluence of stereotypically “American” and “European” modes of dialogic improv. “A Tiny Hole in Tuva” is a bit of a surprise when the bassists create a gorgeous drone, but Eneidi’s playing is even more startling. I was not prepared for the sheer force of his presence on this session, the bent bravura and speech-song venom with which he can attack and elongate a phrase. It’s not all Ayleresque or Brotzmanian fire and brimstone, however, even though the dynamic level is often high; “Breakfast with a Dervish,” a brief Eneidi solo outing, is positively other-worldly, exuding a kind of cosmically Eastern ethnicity. Some of his best work. At the other end of the spectrum is the aptly named Spirit, whose sound often hovers on the edges of audibility. It’s actually quite intricate, a myriad of tinkles, soft ametric intertwinings and the occasional rattle and thump only hinting at jazz rhetoric. His handling of timbre and space on “The Unforseen is What is Beautiful” is positively exquisite, his lines cut from the most delicately ornate fabric. The two opposing forces, Spirit and Eneidi, bob and weave around the bassists, who form the axis around which all forces revolve. They are the anchor in an ever-changing stylistic storm, and it’s this oil-and-water aesthetic that makes the disc such a joy to experience. Even though I’d like to have heard some of these pieces extended, most being in the two-to-six minute range, their quick-fire juxtaposition also gives the disc an ironic unity. This is a wonderfully adventurous set on many levels, and I’m glad it finally saw the light of day. By Marc Medwin