Biota (band)

Biota is a longstanding American experimental electronic music ensemble that has released a growing number of elaborate musical-visual projects and albums since their beginnings in the late 1970s. Biota is known for its highly detailed and often radical approach to composition and arrangement, founded largely upon principles of studio-based co-composition, simultaneity, and meticulous electronic processing of mostly acoustic sound sources — creating an unconventional continuum of traditional and nontraditional musical forms, including folk, jazz, chamber, rock, and occasional balladry.

Biota
Also known asBiota-Mnemonists, Mnemonists, Mnemonist Orchestra
OriginFort Collins, Colorado, United States
GenresExperimental music, electroacoustic music, musique concrète, free improvisation
Years active1979–present
LabelsRecommended Records (RēR) (1986-present), Dys (1979-1985), Bad Alchemy, Anomalous Records, No Man's Land
Websitebiotamusic.com
MembersWilliam Sharp
Tom Katsimpalis
Larry Wilson
Gordon H. Whitlow
Mark Piersel
James Gardner
Kristianne Gale
Steve Scholbe
Randy Yeates
David Zekman
Randy Miotke
Past membersMark Derbyshire
Amy Derbyshire
Charles O'Meara
Chris Cutler
Susanne Lewis
Andy Kredt
Genevieve Heistek
Rolf Goranson
Steve Emmons
Carol Heineman

Musical career

Founded amid the college-town environs of Fort Collins, Colorado, in the late 1970s, Biota's initial recordings were produced under the name Mnemonist Orchestra (soon after shortened to Mnemonists). Produced and engineered by Mark Derbyshire and William Sharp, Mnemonists released five albums between 1980 and 1984 on its self-founded Dys label. Horde (1981, Dys), a seminal album of electronically processed music, garnered critical attention — including from the Recommended Records/RēR label, who rereleased the LP in 1984 — for its groundbreaking use of unconventional sound manipulation and musique concrète techniques. After the release of Gyromancy in 1984, the group split into two collaborative factions: a visual-arts collective, which retained the name Mnemonists, and the musical group, Biota.[1]

Since the mid-1980s, Biota has released numerous idiosyncratic titles, mostly on RēR. These include Rackabones (1985, Dys) and Bellowing Room (1987) (separate albums focusing on themes of displacement, solitude, and the consequences of long-term institutionalization), Tinct (1988), the Awry 10" (1988, Bad Alchemy), and Tumble (1989), a commissioned work for RēR. Almost Never (1992, RēR) features three voluminous suites for winds, strings, and processed acoustic/ethnic/antique instrumentation. Recordings and production for these and other Biota albums primarily took place at Bughouse Studio in Loveland, Colorado, and Dys studios in Fort Collins and Bellvue, Colorado.

By the time of the release of Object Holder (1995, RēR), the group had expanded beyond its geographic bounds to include U.K. drummer Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, News From Babel), New York-based vocalist Susanne Lewis (Hail), Denver prog guitar virtuoso Andy Kredt (d. 2006), and East Coast multi-instrumentalist/composer Charles O'Meara (a.k.a. C.W. Vrtacek of Forever Einstein, d. 2018), who subsequently joined the group as a valued full-time member, contributing numerous classically-based piano compositions. Object Holder was the first Biota album to feature "songs", with lyrics written by Katsimpalis and Cutler, and performed by Lewis.

For Invisible Map (2001, RēR), the group welcomed Gen Heistek (Set Fire to Flames, HṚṢṬA) on vocals and violin. AllMusic.com states, "With its wide range covering delicate post-folkish pop songs to ambient soundscapes, Invisible Map may be the collective's most accomplished and accessible release to date. All music styles (folk, jazz, blues, rock, musique concrète, free improv, etc.) coalesce to be filtered through the dreamer's ears — background vocals are slightly treated, soloing instruments are heard from a distance, rhythm tracks are deliberately just a bit out of sync. This way, the simple tunes never really come into focus, giving the whole album an aura of mystery."[2]

The group reemerged in 2007 with its next release, Half a True Day (RēR), an album of increased nuance and subtlety, introducing folk guitarist and vocalist Kristianne Gale. On Cape Flyaway (2012, RēR), traditional folk ballads, sung by Gale, are interspersed amid original Biota compositions. 2014's Funnel to a Thread (RēR) yields at times a more understated take on some of the same instrumental/vocal elements and themes contained within the previous two CDs, only now influenced perhaps more deeply by the aesthetics of Morton Feldman, Hector Zazou, Mark Hollis, and other masters of electroacoustic sound exploration, minimalism, and Americana.

Biota celebrated its 40th year of existence on a particularly productive note. In 2019, RēR released Fragment for Balance, the latest Biota full-length album, as well as The Biota Box, a 6-CD set that highlights music from four decades of the group's recorded output (including music released as Mnemonists) and features Counterbalance, a companion CD to Fragment for Balance featuring previously unreleased Biota recordings/compositions. The inner booklet contained in Counterbalance features a detailed history of the group, with commentary by co-founders Sharp and Derbyshire.

"BIOTA: Fragment for Balance—After 4 years of work on their 11th release for ReR, this extraordinary, reclusive, and highly individual audio-visual collective continues to evolve through the painstaking accumulation and disposition of a seemingly incompatible range of both exotic and familiar musical languages, instruments, techniques and studio manipulations - into one of the few genuinely original bands at work today. It took a long time to refine their unique process of composition to this level of ambiguity and depth, and newcomers will wonder how they strayed so far from orthodoxy and yet managed to retain a lucidity and transparency that is quite rare in contemporary music. Timeless, almost weightless - yet teeming with life, motion and complexity - this is a music that suggests an untroubled world in which nostalgia, tragedy and agon, while rudely present, remain subservient to deeper, calmer currents. 'Sic transit gloria mundi.' More plainly, these are not conventional compositions, nor are they collective improvisations; but are made of simultaneities, conspiracies, accidents, careful planning and a guiding aesthetic that is both exacting and empirical. Classic."[3]

Also in 2019, Klanggalerie reissued Sorry For Laughing, a minimalist, post-punk concept project by Gordon H. Whitlow, with contributions from fellow Biota members (Sharp, Wilson, Katsimpalis, Piersel). Originally released in 1986 on cassette only, the reissue marks the album's first time on CD. A new Sorry For Laughing album is scheduled for release (Klanggalerie) in early 2021, the first new Sorry For Laughing material in 35 years.

Biota's lineup for Fragment for Balance/Counterbalance consists of Kristianne Gale (vocals, guitar), James Gardner (winds, arrangement), Tom Katsimpalis (guitars, bass), Randy Miotke (trumpet), Chuck O'Meara (piano), Mark Piersel (guitars), Bill Sharp (production, arrangement), Gordon Whitlow (organs, accordion), Larry Wilson (drums, percussion), Randy Yeates (keyboards), and David Zekman (violin, banjolin).

As with all Biota releases, extensive visual works are provided by the Mnemonists visual-arts contingent (featuring Larry Wilson, Randy Yeates, Ken DeVries, Tom Katsimpalis, James Dixon, Bill Ellsworth, Dana Sharp, Heidi Eversley, Joy Froding (d. 2015), Dirk Vallons, Ann Stretton, E.M. Thomas, Stan Starbuck, Simon Abbate, et al).

Working methods

Biota adheres to an unpredictable method of organizing sounds that ultimately allows listeners to imbue proceedings with their own individualized interpretations and experiences (much like interpreting a work of abstract visual art), thereby allowing for an element of "listener composition". Such a concept is in keeping with notions of community collaboration and song evolution inherent in many forms of traditional folk music.

Performance

Biota-Mnemonists has taken to the stage for live performance only twice — in 1981, at the Colorado State University art school in Fort Collins, Colorado, and in November 1990 at the then-annual New Music America festival, held that year in Montreal, Quebec. Under the festival banner "Musiques Actuelles", the group premiered a suite of original works composed specifically for the occasion, featuring live (real-time) production and projected animation created by Mnemonists artist Heidi Eversley. The entire musical program of the New Music America performance was eventually released on CD as Musique Actuelle 1990 (2004), on Anomalous.

Discography

As Mnemonist Orchestra

As Mnemonists

As Biota

As Biota-Mnemonists
  • Musique Actuelle 1990 (live) (CD, 2004, Anomalous Records)

Guest appearances
  • Mark Piersel, Distant Lives (cassette, Dys, 1983)
  • Sorry For Laughing, Sorry For Laughing (cassette - as Jesus Wept, private, 1986; CD reissue, Klanggalerie, 2019)

References
  1. Colli, Giuseppe. "Openness, Density, Mystery and Wonder... The Strange Case of Biota". Biota homepage. Retrieved 2007-10-01.
  2. Couture, François. "review of Invisible Map CD". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 2013-11-01.
  3. http://www.rermegacorp.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Session_ID=9e3eedb0f60956514d15d62956a4c4eb&Screen=PROD&Category_Code=&Initial=&CatListingoffset=&Product_Code=ReRBCD9&Store_Code=RM&Initial=&search=Biota&searchoffset=&filter_cat=&PowerSearch_Begin_Only=3&sort=&range_low=&range_high=
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