Larry Thrasher

Larry Thrasher (* 1959 ) is an American musician who combines elements from industrial , noise , ambient and world music . He is best known for his Qawwali group Thrasher Qawwal from 1987 to 1997 and his collaboration with Genesis P-Orridge since 1994 in his projects Psychic TV and Thee Majesty .

biography

Thrasher grew up in Kentucky and learned the piano and guitar as a child. He was already studying classical guitar in the 1970s. After graduating, he was briefly with an Australian punk band called Heroes , then he came to Los Angeles and turned to percussion, where he was particularly influenced by the Orient. Thrasher had his first release with the noise band Big Stab in 1984, with whom he recorded four albums within a short period of time.

These early releases were distributed by the Silent Records label , first as cassettes and later as LPs. Silent Rec. Was founded by fellow musician Kim Cascone . Thrasher was also one of two percussionists in its follow-up band, The Thessalonians , alongside three keyboardists and a guitarist. The Thessalonians have achieved cult status in San Francisco and have also released records on Silent Records; the label has developed into an important independent label to this day, but was sold by founder Cascone in 1996.

Thrasher studied Indian classical music and tabla with Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music in India from 1986 and founded the Qawwali group Thrasher Qawwal in 1987 , which existed until 1997. Despite only a few releases, the band had an outstanding reputation as one of the very few western qawwali groups of their time. Thrasher appears under the stage name Babalarrji in this context .

From 1993, Larry Thrasher worked with Genesis P-Orridge for around ten years after he moved to the USA. By 1997 alone, a dozen albums had been created in rapid succession, some of which Thrasher had only mastered and some of which were completely musically designed. The albums appeared under different group names depending on the origin of their creation: Psychic TV , Splinter Test or Genesis P-Orridge & Larry Thrasher . Thrasher's contributions are multifaceted and range from percussion and ambient sound carpets to complete electronic arrangements and sound control of the albums. In 1999 he took part in the farewell concert of Psychic TV in London and on the 2007 studio album Hell is invisible ... the reformed as PTV3 Psychic TV, which was recorded in the spring of 2006 by the then tour line-up, to which Thrasher does not count, he becomes mentioned as guest musician on several pieces.

From 1998 Thrasher formed the group Thee Majesty with P-Orridge and the guitarist Bryin Dall , which first appeared in October 1998 in Stockholm and to which he is still formally today, even though he has apparently not appeared in the group since 2004 for financial reasons and is now represented by Eddie O'Dowd.

Thrasher is involved in numerous other projects, such as the acid jazz band Om Boys and the Minimal Noise Project XX . His latest project is called Poo Poo Shoe and had its stage premiere on January 20, 2007 in Oakland.

Discography (excerpt)

The Thessalonians:

• The Black Field (Silent records) 1987
• Soulcraft (Silent records) 1991

Psychic TV:

• Trip Reset (Cleopatra Records) 1994
• Cathedral Engine (Dossier Records) 1994
• Electric Newspaper (CD series) 1995-97
• Cold Blue Torch (Cleopatra Records) 1995
• Hell is invisible ... Heaven is her / e 2007

Splinter test:

• Thee fractured garden 1996
• Spatial Memories (Dossier Records) 1997

Thee Majesty:

• Time's up 1999