Sons of Armageddon
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Sons of Armageddon

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Music

The best kept secret in music

Press


""One of the year's best acid-jazz albums""

Call it acid-jazz or abstract downtempo. Well whatever you call it you’ll be listening to it. The Sons of Armageddon seek to bleep and blip their way across lounges everywhere and with songs as seriously delectable as this they’re sure to be on their merry little way to greatness. Each song is the perfect addition to anyone’s iPod or to that fashionable DJ’s record collection that has a weekend residency in the trendy bar downtown. Easily one of this year’s best acid-jazz albums.
- Smother.net


"the next "must own""

Know what I love? When I get something that at first I'm like, "Hmmm... I don't know about all that!" But then, after I put the CD in my player and hit play and shit, I'm all like, "Awww, yeah! This is the new shit! I'm so glad I'm the first person on Earth to have heard this!"
Sons Of Armageddon's newest release, The Softest Touch, is exactly that: the new shit. Horns and smooth synth sounds step softly over sexy cymbals and thick dub beats. It's free jazz and synth electro pop blended into a beautifully-layered concoction of noise and sample work. And if the opening track, "Ripe Watermelon", doesn't sound like something created by the bastard child of Herbie and Miles, I don't know what does.
This is the CD that anyone who knows shit about music will claim as the next "must own", much like Massive Attack's Mezzanine. Six months from now, everyone will have a copy. So don't be the dork that latches on to it after everyone else already has it. Raise your cool factor a notch on November 16th, and pick this masterpiece up. After all, it is the new shit. - Tastes Like Chicken


""the future of dub""

If you want to hear da future of dub, or at least its antecedent, listen no further than the Sons Of Armageddon's 'The Softest Touch' (Magic Pony), which is so heavily electronified, its hard to tell where the programming ends and production begins. Jamaicafication is on the back burner, too. An identifiable reggae beat doesn't pop in until five minutes into 'E.S. Smothered,' and by then the video games and children's toys have all but taken control of the mix. This is definitely the bleep-bloop school of modern dub by way of acid jazz, though fastest-tongue-in-the-West Kirk Knuffke takes these spacey soundscapes to legato land with his Miles of cool trumpet solos. And is that a harmonica in the middle of 'Shambles Factory,' and how does it morph so seamlessly into a horn? Funk, Hip Hop, Indian film music samples and the occasional theremin contribute to the otherworldly perks. - The Beat


""unlimited source of musical ingenuity""

Sons of Armageddon is a collection of seven Denver musicians who create a jazz-driven mash of analog/electronic experimentalist funk-improv-dancehall-hop. Sounds loop and lull, with samples and vocals intermitting, occasional horns, and even a fair display of turnrtablism. Improv is obviously a big part of this; and is achieved stunningly. Innumerable sounds emit from seemingly fabricated instruments—which would be no surprise from a group that appears to have an unlimited source of musical ingenuity.

Reminiscent, at moments, of Disposable Hero’s most intense looping, and of The Orb’s spatial transience, this record takes the constraints of structure a little closer to chaos than either of the aforementioned. That’s not to say that there is anything arrhythmic or hard to follow about this; rather, its intensity and thickness are certainly cause for several listens. - Kaffeine Buzz


""one of the coolest underground spins of the year""

Some people have suggested that this is what Miles Davis would be doing today if he were still alive. I agree, but it'd have to be a reincarnation of Miles in his early 30's, holed up in an empty industrial warehouse down some back alley with a bunch of electro-jazz musicians and DJs — this isn't the kind of music a 79 year old with cinch-sak pants and Spyro Gyra style production is capable of making. Loopy, trippy, funky, and ultimately one of the coolest underground spins of the year.
- usedwigs.com


""Aphex Twin if he was a jazz artist""

The press release said it; I'll reiterate it. Sons of Armageddon is not a metal band. The CD title, "The Softest Touch", does seem to help mitigate any possible misunderstandings. That, and the fact that it's getting reviewed here, should clear that up. Moving on, the best single description I could use would be what the artists call themselves: "post-apocalyptic electro-jazz for the pre-apocalyptic listener". And their jazz is strange jazz indeed, but for this formed at the turn of the millennium band, it seems a perfect thing as it brings this genre full circle in many ways. Much classic jazz is itself dissonant and experimental, freely wandering where it will. So too the Sons of Armageddon, whose art fuses with strange, lurid effectiveness the old school peculiarity that alienated conservative listeners back when jazz was edgy (Hi, Kerouac, you rebel!) with fringey electronic sounds from today. Kinda matches with that whole millennium thing, huh? Bringing together oddball techno and mindwarped acid jazz, SOA has concocted music to appeal to fans of acid and experimental jazz, as well as dark, weird techno. In spots I'm given the image of Aphex Twin if he was a jazz artist. Not for all tastes and a little tough to take in large doses, but interesting nonetheless, SOA is worth a look for electronic jazzerists. - raves.com


""topped my list of the best releases from 2004""

Colorful, complicated and compelling, this topped my list of the best releases from 2004.


Sons of Armageddon is comprised of five members, but the group employs musical weaponry far from your standard jazz quintet: Lewis “Glewlio” Keller on turntables, laptop, theremin, synthesizers, melodica, and guitar; Mark Prather on percussion, samples, and machines; Cameron “Slammy” Thompson on samples and drums; Tim Hochman on bass and post-production; with Kirk Knuffke on trumpet the main solo voice; plus alto saxman Dav Poli Hoof guesting on “Shambles Factory.” A different shape of band for the different shape of jazz things to come.


Knuffke's trumpet solos and the trippy, thick psychedelic stew from which they bubble have led some press to hype The Softest Touch as a mythical post-millennial collaboration between the late Miles Davis and bassist/producer Bill Laswell. “A Thousand Kisses Deep” sure sounds like Laswell dub, as does “E. S. Smothered,” which stitches in colorful electronic patches where Laswell usually employs Indian, Asian or African percussion instead.


The comparison to Davis flatters Knuffke but not by too much. Mark Isham is probably closer. He sure knows how to make a cinematic and dramatic entrance—floating his first suspended notes over the squall and clamor of “Hoels,” then precision dive-bombing with Hochman's rumbling bassline to swarm the beat in a machine-gun flurry of notes in its closing. As for the band, SOA describes its sound as “post-apocalyptic electro-jazz for the pre-apocalyptic listener.” It's as close as anything else, so why the hell not?


The centerpiece “Dubya” begins in atmosphere and percussion. Then bass pads out from under its cover with loping powerful strides as trumpet rides atop, surveying the scene like the king of the jungle with a hungry omniscient eye and cutting back in after the break to ferociously flay the beat. Occasional bits of New Orleans snare drumming gives Knuffke a more fluid ride in “The Diddler,” at least until the bass solo mutates into jarring, h-u-g-e electronic 4/4 beats pockmarked with sound snippets to close.


Man, is this stuff hard to describe!


If I managed or owned a retail shop, I'd keep three copies on hand so that folks could find The Softest Touch under Modern Rock (from its attitude), Electronic Music (from its instrumentation), or Jazz (from its trumpet solos). It seems to belong and to not belong in each group. That's sort of why this is my pick for Best of 2004—not only because of its music, but because of what its music and music like it foreshadows for music in the future. It seems almost impossible to say that this is or is not a jazz record.

~ Chris M. Slawecki
- www.allaboutjazz.com


Discography

The Sons of Armageddon 2003 - full length CD
The Softest Touch 2004 - full length CD

You can hear the Sons at Radio 1190 and KGNU in Boulder. Also, the Sons just began national radio promotion and can be heard on WGAJ (Boston), WUSR (Scranton), WUSB (Stony Brooke), KCSB (Santa Barbara), KABF (Little Rock), CIUT (Toronto), WUIC (Chicago), KSPC (Los Angeles), KUPS (Seattle), XM Radio and over 20 more stations nationwide. They are also on internet radio at M3Radio and Aural Innovations Radio.

Photos

Feeling a bit camera shy

Bio

The Sons were formed at the turn of the millenium in Denver, Colorado. Composed of some of the finest musicians in Denver, the Sons have become known for their quirky blend of electronica and improvisational jazz. What you hear on the CD is what you get live. Odd ambient samples, circuit-bent children's toys, theremins, melodica and traditional instruments combine to produce their genre bending sound they call "post-apocalyptic electro jazz." Hybrid Magazine described it like this: "What Miles would sound like if he'd lived long enough to come to his senses." If you like Jaga Jazzist, Four Tet, electric-era Miles, give the Sons a listen. Don't be late for Armageddon.