Kowloon Walled City (band)
| Kowloon Walled City | |
|---|---|
 Kowloon Walled City, Berlin 2016 |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Sludge |
| founding | 2007 |
| Website | inthewalledcity.com |
| Current occupation | |
Vocals, guitar
|
Scott Evans |
Electric guitar |
Jon Howell |
| Ian Miller | |
| Jeff Fagundes | |
| former members | |
Electric guitar |
Jason Pace (until 2011) |
Kowloon Walled City is an American sludge band from San Francisco . It has existed since 2007 and has since recorded three albums and a few singles.
history
Pace and Miller previously played in a band that Scott Evans had hired as a sound engineer when recording. The previous band broke up, however, and the three founded Kowloon Walled City together. Scott and Ian found the name in an internet forum, it comes from the illegal Hong Kong settlement of the same name .
KWC appeared for the first time in November 2007, their first release, the EP Turk Street , named after the street in which their rehearsal room is located, was released in January 2008. In October 2009, after long recordings, the album Gambling on the Richter Scale was released in the same year the band played at the Noise Pop Festival .
In 2010 and 2012 the band released split releases together with the Ladder Devils and Fight Amp and Thou , with Lisa Papineau singing for the latter . In September 2011 Jason Pace left the band for personal reasons, followed by Jon Howell from Tigon .
In the summer of 2012, Kowloon Walled City played in support of Sleep on a US tour. In the same year, recordings began for a new record, which was announced for late autumn 2012. On October 16th, the band announced that the album Container Ships would be released on December 4th. The third album, Grievances , was released at the end of 2015 .
As a professional sound engineer, Scott Evans has always recorded and mixed the band's releases himself. The band always records live in the studio, so all musicians play their tracks at the same time, and the best one is selected from several recordings of the same piece.
For the sale of sound carriers, the band mainly relies on elaborately designed vinyl and CDs. All pieces of music are also available as a free download on the label's website when they are released. The band emphasizes the "liberating" character of this offer.
style
music
Evans called the band a "gigantic rhythm section, tuned to dull". The slowly played guitars are deeply tuned, the bass very present, the vocals a scream. Metal-typical elements like double bass and guitar solos are missing. The band's sound is described as "thick".
Genres such as sludge, metal and hardcore punk , but also noise rock, were named for the stylistic classification of the band . The band themselves disagree about their musical assignment, at least to metal: while Evans characterized Kowloon Walled City as “heavy, but not metal” despite occasional metal parts, the guitarist at the time, Pace, saw a place for within the numerous metal subgenres Kowloon Walled City.
In detail, given the band's sound, critics felt reminded of bands like Noothgrush or Neurosis , but also Jesus Lizard or the early Baroness . Critics more frequently noted general similarities to bands on the Amphetamine Reptile label . The band confirmed that the bands of the label were influential for them, as further influences they give bands like Unsane or the Melvins . In 2015, Rock-A-Rolla described her style as "between the apocalyptic melancholy of neurosis and the grief of everyday life at Codeine or Bedhead ".
With the second and third albums, the band tried to develop a less distorted, more song-oriented style. The plan to record the third album Grievances without any distortion, the band gave up during the recording because the sound became too pure and untypical.
instrumentation
The band's instrumentation is fairly consistent. Evans plays a Les Paul guitar. An effect device specially developed for him called the kowloon walled bunny is also used . Devices from Traynor and a Peavey VTM60 are used as guitar amplifiers, and devices from Marshall are used as speakers .
The electric bass is a Fender Precision Bass that is played via amplifiers and speakers from the Ampeg SVT series. A Sonor Force 3000 serves as the drum kit .
reception
Guitar World described Turk Street as "a latticework of dirty atmosphere, jerky rhythms and tonal condensation".
For Gambling on the Richter Scale Lambgoat awarded 9 out of 10 points, praised the intelligent guitar work and the massive bass and called the record the "heaviest record of 2009". Powermetal awarded 8.5 out of 10 points and spoke of a "scratchy and phenomenal bang," Metal-Review gave 7.6 out of 10 points and praised the fact that the band managed to cope with political and social problems musically and in terms of content, without being inedible. The 2015 album Grievances was recognized by Rock-A-Rolla as "one of the best rock albums of the year".
The American sludge band Thou named Kowloon Walled City as one of their inspirations.
Discography
- Turk Street (2008)
- Gambling on the Richter Scale (2009)
- Lose Lose Lose - with Ladder Devils & Fight Amp (2010)
- July / 4th of July - with Thou (2012)
- Container Ships (2012)
- Grievances (2015)
Web links
- Official website
- Kowloon Walled City at Discogs (English)
Individual evidence
Footnotes directly behind a statement cover the individual statement, footnotes directly behind a punctuation mark the entire preceding sentence. Footnotes after a space refer to the entire preceding paragraph.
- ↑ a b Ryan Henry: Kowloon Walled City In: Thrasher , November 2008, pp. 188-189
- ↑ a b c invisibleoranges.com: Kowloon Walled City - Turk Street EP , accessed October 9, 2012
- ↑ a b c d e bayareametalscene.com: Meet Kowloon Walled City | Bay Area Metal Scene ( Memento of the original from April 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ a b c blog.sfgate.com: Spaced Tuesday - Kowloon Walled City | Off The Record | on SFGate.com blog , accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ inthewalledcity.com: KOWLOON WALLED CITY »Blog Archive» It's June ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ inthewalledcity.com: KOWLOON WALLED CITY »Blog Archive» Personnel turnover within the organization ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed October 9, 2012
- ↑ ssgmusic.com: Live Review: Sleep, Kowloon Walled City and Stoneburner at Neumos - SSG Music - Your Favorite Source for Everything Music , accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ gunshyassassin.com: Kowloon Walled City In The Studio | Gun Shy Assassin ( Memento of the original from November 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ inthewalledcity.com: KOWLOON WALLED CITY »Blog Archive» Container Ships - December 4 ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed October 22, 2012
- ↑ a b c d Scott Evans: Kowloon Walled City Studio Report, Part II (Final) | Decibel Magazine , accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ a b c d Anonymus: Introducing: Kowloon Walled City In: Guitar World, February 2009, p. 34
- ↑ bayareametalscene.com: The 5 Loudest Bay Area Albums of 2009: # 3 | Bay Area Metal Scene ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed October 10, 2012
- ^ A b c Daniel Alvarez: Kowloon Walled City , In: SF Bay Guardian, November 11, 2008, accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ a b zenametal.blogspot.de: Zena Metal Wants To Conquer The World: My Top 20 Albums of 2009 , accessed on October 10, 2012
- ↑ a b c lambgoat.com: Kowloon Walled City - Gambling on the Richter Scale review | Lambgoat , accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ collective-zine.co.uk: Kowloon Walled City - Gambling On The Richter Scale (perpetual motion machine) review on Collective Zine , accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ metalsucks.net: KOWLOON WALLED CITY'S JASON PACE DISPLAYS HIS VAST KNOWLEDGE OF THE DENNY'S BREAKFAST | MetalSucks , accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ a b c Kowloon Walled City In: Rock-A-Rolla, Issue # 57, 2015, p. 8
- ^ A b c Ian Miller: Kowloon Walled City Studio Report, Part I | Decibel Magazine , accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ benadrian.com: benadrian pedals , accessed October 10, 2012
- ↑ powermetal.de: Review | KOWLOON WALLED CITY - Gambling On The Richter Scale | POWERMETAL.de , accessed on October 10, 2012
- ^ John Ray: Review of Kowloon Walled City - Gambling On The Richter Scale. (No longer available online.) Metal Review, formerly the original ; Retrieved October 10, 2012 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ Konstantin Hanke: Thou - Always in motion, always ahead In: Ox, Issue # 93, December 2010 / January 2011
