» Doctor Nerve
Doctor Nerve – the name says it all!
When people are talking about a band like this: „I only could survive the first two-thirds“ (Peter Goodman, New York Newsday), „some of the most cogently raucous ideas on the current scene, postminimal, neomaximal, and full of energy“ (Kyle Gann, Village Voice), "a startling collission of post-metal guitar, avant-garde improvisation, and tight, large-ensemble arrangements" (Guitar Player) and at the bottom of the line it's a „blissful test of musical severity", then prepare yourself...
Doctor Nerve is a rock band that has been annihilating the boundaries between rock, metal, improvisation, jazz and experimental music since 1983. Founded by guitarist / composer Nick Didkovsky, the band plays tightly composed, complex, extremely energetic, fast-changing music.
Hearing the suggestion that Doctor Nerve is a "fusion" band, Didkovsky counters: "Wer're more like a collision.“ - He's right. Brash, intelligent and loud, Doctor Nerve's music is nothing less than catalsmic. The band negotiates torturous, constantly changing time signatures. The music often teeters on the edge of deconstruction, but the musicians reign it in before it derails. Well… sometimes factions of the group seem to go off in different directions, but with repeated listening, one hears unity in what seemed to be chaos. It's very exciting during a live gig - because of the missing replay button.
Even the list of those, who influenced Doctor Nerve, seems to be a little chaotic: Alice Cooper, Fred Frith, Iannis Xenakis, Frank Zappa, Alvin Lucier, Black Sabbath, Igor Stravinsky, Larry Polansky, KISS, Queen, Motorhead, Bela Bartok, Douglas Hofstadter, Led Zeppelin and Charles Ames.
Doctor Nerve's repertoire includes several computer-composed pieces. Didkovsky saiys the computer is a tool that reflects the artist and so neither guarantees excellence nor leads to the cliché of a mechanized, boring sound one might expect from a computer.
Now you have something tho think about what is awaiting you:
Leo Ciesa - drums, skins, Egil's bones
Nick Didkovsky - guitars, retro echoplex nostalgia
Yves Duboin - soprano sax, hearing threshold provocation
Rob Henke - trumpet, screaming ears
Ben Herrington - extreme trombone
Jesse Krakow - electric bass, trout masks
Michael Lytle - contra/bass clarinet, chilling predawn calm
Kathleen Supové - Massive keyboards, massive sampling, massive vocal rants
(pictures: Scott Friedlander)
This engagement is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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