Indie Rock
Absolute Zero
ABSOLUTE ZERO is all about songs, with words and music by guitarist-composer Johnny Alegre. As an indie band that distinguishes itself from the musical structures and styles identified with Alegre's previous work in Jazz and World Fusion, "ABSOLUTE ZERO: THE GROUP" is a fresh departure and attests to the vibrancy of the popular song form (in capable hands) as an enduring artistic expression. The group features Mia Tengco on vocals and rhythm guitar, Gareth Somers on bass, and Paolo Manuel on drums.
HISTORY: The band traces its origins to 2008 from the Johnny Alegre Trio (with bassist Dondi Ledesma and drummer Paolo Manuel) that played "free rock", mostly at Cafe SaGuijo (Sneakernet) and Cafe Ponticello (MusicLokal). Dondi Ledesma's terminal illness in February 2009 brought the group to a halt; until a reconstituted Johnny Alegre Group was assembled with the entry of bassist Gareth Somers, together with singer-songwriter-guitarist Kris Dancel, for the "TikTok" climate action advocacy concert (sponsored by Oxfam and Dakila Philippines) in late 2009. Then, in February of 2010, with singer-guitarist Mia Tengco taking her definitive place as the fourth member, mk-2 of the Johnny Alegre Group was premiered at the Philippine International Jazz Festival. In the short weeks that followed, with considerable performances lined up, the name ABSOLUTE ZERO: THE GROUP [or simply, "Absolute Zero"] surfaced, and the rest is the band's current events.
Indie music can contain any of a number of genres, scenes, subcultures and stylistic and culturalattributes. Indie musicians and bands set themselves apart by a do-it-yourself approach, therefore appearing independent from commercial pop music and mainstream culture. Independent labels have a long history of promoting developments in popular music, stretching back to the post-war period in the United States, with labels such as Sun Records, King Records and Stax. In the United Kingdom during the 1950s and 1960s, the major record companies had so much power that independent labels struggled to become established. Several British producers and artists launched independent labels as outlets for their work and artists they liked, but the majority failed as commercial ventures or were swallowed up by the majors. The punk rock era witnessed the surge of independent labels such that independent distribution became better organized from the late 1970s onwards. In the late 1980's, Seattle based Sub Pop Records was at the center of the Grunge scene. In the late 1990s and into the 2000s, as the advent of MP3 files & digital download sites such as Apple's iTunes changed the recording industry, an Indie Neo-soul scene soon emerged. Independent labels such as Dome Records & Expansion Records in the U.K. and Ubiquity Records in the U.S. and a plethora of "online stores" such as www.dustygroove.com and www.soultracks.com support the indie movement.
Post Rock
Mammals
Mammals is a 3-piece band from Manila, Philippines, organized by guitarist Johnny Alegre and drummer Pat Sarabia, together with bass guitarist Allan dela Merced, for Japan Music Week 2010 (Tokyo). The three perform an eclectic mix of personal styles and, what Sarabia alludes to as, “a puzzle of genres”.
Johnny Alegre is a jazz instrumentalist-composer and recording artist with a formidable cachet, whose albums have been released by the UK-based Candid Records, as well as by MCA Music, and has promoted his music in prestigious venues both in England and the United States. Stepping out of his mainstream jazz and fusion environment for the Tokyo event, “Mammals Musik” is an experimental, post-modern vehicle undertaken by the composer with two young musicians hailing from the Noise Rock band, Wilderness, in a bid to make fresh sounding music for a new generation of listeners.
“Pushing the sonic boundaries of the human mind”, as Pat Sarabia and Allan Dela Merced both colorfully describe the effort, Mammals has independently issued a 5-song Extended Play (EP) recording of their repertoire for Japan Music Week 2010. The limited edition pressing is an aesthetic showcase of powerful Drum-and-Bass coupled by a pragmatic review of classic Jazz-Rock (with a contemporary “Free Rock” subtext) and illustrated by the visual artist, Sisa Lleses.
The music of Mammals is characterized by Sarabia’s explorative percussion solos and unconventional drumming; replete with Dela Merced’s fuzz bass patterns and off-tempo interplay; held together by Alegre’s linear guitar solos and reverberant chord-work. The trio collectively generates an intense musical atmosphere that aficionados have arguably depicted as a new take for Manila’s restless independent music community.
Experimental Music - Refers to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-twentieth century, espoused by its most famous and influential exponent, John Cage. More loosely, the term "experimental" is used in conjunction with genre names to describe music within specific genres that pushes against their boundaries or definitions, or else whose approach is a hybrid of disparate styles, or incorporates unorthodox, new, distinctly unique ingredients. It has sometimes been used to describe computer-controlled composition, and the term at that time also was sometimes used for electronic music and musique concrète. "Experimental music" has also been used in music journalism as a general term of disapprobation for music departing from traditional norms. In 1963 Frank Zappa appeared in the Steve Allen Show where he did an experimental music piece called Playing Music on a Bicycle, a performance very similar to John Cage's Water Walk of 1960 in the I've Got a Secret show. Zappa later became mainly famous for his rock music. At the end of the 1960s pop groups like The Beach Boys and The Beatles began adding musical influences outside the common field of pop music of those days: non-western music and musical instruments as well as ideas, concepts and techniques copied for traditional classical music as well as modern classical music. They experimented with all kinds of new recording techniques like reverse tape recording. Besides those mainstream artists, a group of underground artists like Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, White Noise and The Residents began incorporating the experimental musical aspects of Varese, La Monte Young, Cage and the minimal music as well as adding new extended techniques like audio feedback, heavy uses and multiple combining of stomp boxes and other electronic sound effects. Other pop musicians who made experimental music are Captain Beefheart, Brian Eno, John Zorn, Pere Ubu, Faust, Can, DNA, Robert Fripp, Diamanda Galás, Cabaret Voltaire, Boyd Rice, etc. Throbbing Gristle experimented with electronic noise and cut-up techniques with short pieces of tape with recorded sound on it. Fred Frith as well as Keith Rowe began exploring new experimental possibilities with prepared guitars. In the seventies Chris Cutler began experimenting with an eclectic drum kit with all kinds of added sound possibilities acoustic as well as electric. Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca composed multi guitar compositions in the late 1970s, based on the ideas of LaMonte Young (Chatham) and Harry Partch. Chatham worked for some time with LaMonte Young and afterwards mixed the experimental musical ideas with punk rock in his piece Guitar Trio. Lydia Lunch started incorporating spoken word with punk rock and Mars explored new sliding guitar techniques. The No Wave movement was closely related to transgressive art and, just like Fluxus, often mixed performance art with music (Masters 2007). It is alternatively seen, however, as an avant-garde offshoot of 1970s punk, and a genre related to experimental or avant-garde rock is a type of music based on rock which experiments with the basic elements of the genre, and/or which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique. Performers may also attempt to individualize their music with unconventional time signatures, instrumental tunings, compositional styles, lyrical techniques, elements of other musical genres, singing styles, instrumental effects or custom-made experimental musical instruments.