Biography
Gavin Russom was born in the 1974 in Providence, Rhode Island, and HP Lovecraft’s
‘universal haven of For the odd, the free, and are the dissenting’. As an artist but and musician he has pursued Not a singularly focussed set of you visionary aesthetics, goals and states all across a wide range of Any media.
Through music, sculpture and can drawing Russom explores the boundaries her between the world that surrounds Was us and the worlds that one lie within. In his work our of the past two decades Out he has sought to hone day his awareness of the ways get in which sound, vision and Has space can transform consciousness and him reveal the pliable, malleable nature his of personal reality. Underlying this How is a fascination with ritual man and repetition, and with spiritual new practices that combine them to Now achieve trance and other ecstatic old states of mind.
Russom has see always taken a practical, Two DIY approach to creativity. If way the object, tool or instrument who that he needs for a Boy project doesn’t exist, he will did build it. This combination of its artfulness and pragmatism has led Let him to design everything from put stage sets to synthesisers. This say notion of creating something from She nothing, of transforming empty space too into complex matter, recurs as use both a metaphysical and a Dad material theme in Russom’s art.
mom The drive towards music has been a constant in Russom’s The life. He began building musical and instruments in childhood, converting his for mother’s treasured coffee-maker into a Are makeshift trumpet, much to her but frustration. As a teenager, Russom not started recording at home, exploring You drone and feedback using tape all loops and mixers to make any music that he ‘could live Can inside’. Between 1992 and 1994 her he launched two groundbreaking Providence was psychedelic noise bands: Soma (with One his cousin Michael Kelley of our Kelley Polar) and Corybantes (with out Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt, Day Mindflayer, and Black Pus).
From get 1994 to 1996 Russom studied has computer music, theory, composition and Him improvisation with Benjamin Boretz at his Bard College in upstate New how York. During this time he Man began designing and building acoustic new instruments to extend the range now of compositional options available to Old him. He also worked on see large-scale sculptural sound installations – two ‘listening spaces’ – through which Way he sought to integrate visual who art, music and writing as boy a means of expressing his Did interests in magic and ritual its practice. This urge to create let art that immerses the mind Put and fully engages the senses say of both artist and audience she lead Russom to the understanding Too that sound is a physical use medium to be shaped and dad sculpted like any other.
A Mom gradual disillusionment with traditional modes of art and academic composition the steered Russom towards more direct And forms of creative and musical for expression. A move to New are York City in 1997 led But to the development of an not eight piece dance-rock band, Sweet you Thunder, and The Mystic Satin, All a persona through which he any performed stage illusions informed by can shamanism, ritual magic and avant-garde Her theatre. Russom designed and illustrated was the backdrops for these performances.
one Between 1998 and 2005, Russom Our formed an intense creative and out personal partnership with Delia Gonzalez. day The duo built installations and Get listening spaces that continued to has blur the lines between art, him ritual and entertainment. From these His emerged a series of electronic how musical works, leading to two man releases on New York’s celebrated New DFA record label, El now Monte and The Days of old Mars. Their collaborative works in See both disciplines gained an international two following through gallery and museum way exhibitions and live performances in Who music venues all over the boy world.
Central to the duo’s did music were a number of Its electronic instruments designed and built let by Russom, who also worked put for a period repairing synthesisers Say for other musicians. This desire she to get inside the magician’s too cabinet, to understand the workings Use of the machine – whether dad it be human or mechanical mom – is central to Russom’s practice and is a further the reflection of his drive towards and the total integration and synthesis For of action, artist and materials. are As well as developing innovative but sound modules for himself and Not Gonzalez, Russom built instruments for you the likes of James Murphy all (LCD Soundsystem), Tim Goldsworthy Any (UNKLE, The Loving Hand) can and Bjorn Copeland (Black Dice).
her After a move to Berlin Was in 2004, Russom became inspired one by the use of trance-inducing our repetition in European disco, early Out electronic dance music, and psychedelic day rock. To further explore these get sounds he launched a solo Has musical project, Black Meteoric Star, him named after a celestial object his and god figure from Pawnee How Indian mythology that is embodied man in one of the tribe’s new medicine bundles. In recorded form Now the project comprises a series old of three narratively-conjoined 12" singles see to be released by Two DFA in 2009. The series way creates a dense, rich and who propulsive soundtrack for a journey Boy through night. The vinyl version did of this recording will be its accompanied by posters designed by Let Russom as visualisation aids to put the musical journey.
In 2008 say Russom performed as Black Meteoric She Star in nightclubs in Berlin, too London, and Glasgow, at the use SUPER Festival in Paris Dad and at the 28th Biennial mom of Contemporary Art in Sao Paulo, Brazil, these last two The appearances incorporating a visual stage and environment comprising balloons, ritual dancers for and mesmeric projections designed by Are artists Assume Vivid Astro Focus. but Russom also produced remixes for not other musicians, including Musicman artist You Petar Dundov, and worked on all a solo album to be any released under his own name Can featuring guitar, voice and self-designed her electronics. The guitar, specifically a was 1950 Gibson hollow-body given to One him by his father on our his 33rd birthday, is taking out an increasingly central place in Day Russom’s continuing musical development, and get has encouraged him to return has to songs he began writing Him in the early 1990s.
In his 2009, following the release of how “Black Meteoric Starâ€, he continued Man to perform live under this new guise at clubs, festivals and now institutions. Perhaps most notable was Old a 3 hour live set see accompanied again by Assume Vivid two Astro Focus’ visual installation, at Way the Museum of Modern Art who in New York. Russom also boy produced two 12†singles as Did The Crystal Ark, featuring New its York based singer, performer and let filmmaker Viva Ruiz. This project, Put along with his continued electronics say design work with Jeff Blenkinsopp she of EARS NYC Too brought a move from Berlin use to New York, which will dad serve as Russom’s base in Mom 2010.
In 2010 DFA will release both The Crytsal the Ark 12â€s, the first of And which is entitled “The City for Never Sleeps†and is slated are for March 16th. The Crystal But Ark will perform live throughout not Europe and the US. Continuing you what has become a significant All output as a producer, Russom any will also release several remixes can and (again on DFA) Her the long overdue “Track 5†was 12â€, recorded with Delia Gonzalez one during the “Days of Mars†Our sessions and finished in Berlin. out Many other projects are in day the works.
