Overview
Submitted by guitar-list on
The first Arden is a Belgian-Canadian-French six-piece band that unites the forward-thinking micro-forces of Mitchell Akiyama, aMute, sogar, Jeuc Dietrich, Christophe Bailleau, and Sébastien Roux. Their debut, "Conceal", was conceived across a three day production bender at an old house nestled in beautiful Belgian country. The album’s style marries a minimal-electronic approach with post-rock sensibilities from each artist’s sonic palette to birth an entirely unique improvisational sound. "Conceal" is a delightful production piece with unlimited moments of candid melodic beauty that spring into dynamically intense yet masterfully contained emotive exaltations.
Canadian Mitchell Akiyama is perchance the most known members of Arden. With two critically acclaimed albums with his band Désormais, one album on the highly regarded German Raster Noton and Canadian Alien8 imprints, and two albums on the Belgian label Sub Rosa. He’s also the boss of our the very fine Intr-Version label, but above all Akiyama is a special and talented musician.
Belgian Jérôme Deuson, also known as aMute, released his first album on the Intr-Version label in 2004 and immediately found success among press and audience. Since then he performed in Europe and Canada and runs Stilll with his friend Alain Lefebvre.
Under the Sogar moniker lies German Jürgen Heckel who released two albums on the New-York based label 12K, one album on the French label List. A very gifted guitarist and sound process man, Heckel’s work in full of innovation and beauty.
French Sébastien Roux is a busy fellow. After releasing several tracks on the 12K imprint, Sebastien finally released is first solo album on Apestaartje last year. He is also working for the highly regarded IRCAM in France where he is a production assistant of some of the biggest names in nowadays contemporary music.
Christophe Bailleau is from Belgium and his music is clever, dense and worried. After evolving in several famous Belgian bands, he decided to focus and his solo career and released “Madame Colère” on the French label “Le Cri de la Harpe”.
Guitar processing is his specialty.
The final member of Arden is Jeuc Dietrich. He is one of the most skillful cellists in Belgium. Dietrich is also a renowned film director and music composer. He’s actually involved in several new cinematographic projects.
(adapted from http://www.dotshop.se/ds/release.php?code=SCD001)
The second Arden is a group of friends that write, record, and perform music together from Baltimore, Maryland. The quintet is focusing extensively on their first full length album, having released the single, "A Slow Spiral Geoffrey," for free download while completing the recording process. Since the release of the song, the band has been surrounded by buzz, with fans new and old highly anticipating the full length album.
"There is a great energy around the new music and we are just approaching things from different directions. Not looking at defined roles and societal expectations and implications, the new record is really about exploring our own musical appetites and to create music that is lasting and meaningful to us. Hopefully other people will like it too," says bassist Kevin Krause.
With this sort of outlook, the future looks promising for this Charm City group of musicians.
Read more about Suzi Arden on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
