Blemishes |

Blemishes is comprised of Thomas Lumley (tenorsax), Nicola Hein (guitar), Constantin Herzog (bass) and Niklas Wandt (percussion). They improvise.

They were incepted during a tour of northern Germany in February 2012, during which Lumley, then a resident of Rotterdam but originally matured in the improv scene of Leeds, England, first met the duo of Nicola Hein and Niklas Wandt, who themselves had just recently been augmented to their great advantage by Constantin Herzog, one of the up-and-coming Cologne player for all matters free improv and new music. The players quickly found common ground in at times microscopal and fragmented interweavings and energetic, raucous bursts and screeches on the other end of the volume spectrum. A part of this messy affair has been documented in a studio recording, the title of which charmingly invents its own genre:

TRUE GERMAN HATEFUL AND MISANTHROPIC FREE IMPROV.

A second German/BeNeLux Tour was completed in February/March 2013 and has produced some brand new recordings at the legendary LOFT, Cologne.

The dubious results are available on VINYL through the wonderful ANA OTT records early in 2014, made into an album whose title is tellingly pathetic:

LIBIDO.

Listen to it and buy it here:

It comes as a delicately designed and handpackaged goodness in a strictly limited edition of only 300 copies.

Recorded on February 25, 2013 at the Loft, Cologne, Germany. Engineered by Stefan Deistler, mixed and mastered by Pascal Gehrke. Produced for True German Hateful And Misanthropic Free Improv. Artwork: Julia Schwarz. Executive Production by Dennis Dycks and Felix Möser.

PRAISE FOR LIBIDO

“‘Libido’ ist mindestens so anstrengend wie es für ein Freejazz-Werk schließlich angezeigt ist; dabei aber auch unverschämt unterhaltsam – ein Spektakel” (pivotmusik.de)

“[…] si Blemishes cultive l’atonalité la plus radicale, on n’est pas encore tout à fait dans l’abstraction, plutôt dans une sorte de cacophonie étonnamment feutrée dont même les pics de démence semblent au bord du désœuvrement, stridences rongées de l’intérieur par une furieuse envie de s’arracher la peau en la frottant contre les cordes martelées de la basse ou les clés malmenées du saxo.” (indierockmag.com)

“It’s very hard to like this album but doing something as prosaic as liking it is obviously not the reaction they want to inspire. This kind of technically astute but aesthetically fragmented music is a big fat middle finger in the face to pretty much anyone who isn’t in Blemishes and even seasoned jazz weirdos will find it hard going […]” (sittingnow.co.uk)

“Nervosität und Chaos kennzeichnen die Musik der Band ‘Blemishes’ […] Ruhiger Fluss und heiseres Kreischen, elegischer Streicherparts und nervöse Trommelstrukturen sind Pole in diesem mit Überraschungen und Emotionen gespickten sowie am Chaos kratzenden freien Spiel.” (Klaus Mümpfer, jazzpages.com)

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