Home » Jazz Musicians » Converge

Converge

“We wanted to do something grander than the typical four-piece Converge music.”

That’s Converge vocalist Jacob Bannon talking about the seed of inspiration that eventually bloomed into Bloodmoon: I, the new collaborative album created by the legendary hardcore band alongside dark songstress Chelsea Wolfe, her bandmate/writing partner Ben Chisholm and Cave In vocalist/guitarist Steve Brodsky.

“I’ve been a fan of Chelsea and Ben’s work for some time,” Bannon says. “I bought the Apokalypsis record from Aquarius Records in San Francisco, and Ben and I started communicating here and there. He had roots in this world of music, so it started to make sense that we could all work together in some way.”

“Ben introduced me to Converge when we started playing music together in 2009,” Wolfe says. “A couple of years later, we saw that Converge had put Apokalypsis on a year-end list, so we were totally fanning out about that. When they reached out to Ben about performing some Converge songs with new arrangements, I said, ‘I want in on that…’ And it seems like they were happy to have me along.”

Fast forward to a 2016 European tour and a rapturously received appearance at Roadburn that saw all seven musicians performing revamped Converge material. Overnight, what had started as a mutual admiration society had become one of the most formidable musical constellations in recent memory. “We felt like there was enough energy in the live collaboration to actually create new music together,” Converge guitarist and Bloodmoon: I producer Kurt Ballou explains. “It just took a few years to free up the time to get together.”

The musicians descended upon Ballou’s God City Studios in Salem, Massachusetts, to work on material in late 2019. Future sessions were planned for 2020, but then the pandemic hit. The rest of Bloodmoon: I was recorded remotely, though you’d never know it. “I wanted a record that breathed like a band playing together in a room, even if it wasn’t possible during this time period,” Ballou says. “It feels like we achieved that.”

Harrowing and atmospheric, triumphant and melodious, Bloodmoon: I is Converge as you’ve never heard them before. It’s Chelsea Wolfe and Ben Chisholm as you’ve never heard them before. It’s Steve Brodsky as you’ve almost never heard him before—after all, he was a member of Converge in the late ’90s and played bass on 1998’s When Forever Comes Crashing.

“It’s been a real treat to see one of my favorite bands continue to do cool stuff and break the molds of what’s considered hardcore and punk,” Brodsky says of Bloodmoon: I. “It’s a very rare thing in this kind of music to go an experimental route and challenge the quote-unquote ‘rules’ of what’s been laid out beforehand—and do it successfully.”

Read more

Tags

Music Industry

Record Store Day Summer Camp: 200 Record Store Staffers Converge On New Orleans

Record Store Day Summer Camp: 200 Record Store Staffers Converge On New Orleans

Source: HypeBot

Going strong for ten years, Record Store Day has become a big part of the independent music retail business, but besides just being a single day, the event has grown beyond just a single day. One iteration of this is networking party that is Record Store Day Camp. Here we take a closer look at the event and its structure. Guest post by Antone DeSantis of the The Orchard's The Daily Rind The independent retail community gathered together last week ...

Music Industry

How Chatbots, Blockchain Will Converge And Shape Music's Future

How Chatbots, Blockchain Will Converge And Shape Music's Future

Source: HypeBot

In this article, Bas Grasmayer explores the significance of two developing technologies, chatbots and block, and how these two avenues of technological advancement, and their convergence, will serve to shape the future of the music industry. Guest post by Bas Grasmayer on Synchblog I want to make this Projecting Trends installment more personal, since it’s the last regular edition in the series. I’d like to talk about the convergence of two important trends: chatbots and blockchain. In recent weeks, I was ...

142
Event

Musical Traditions Of Iraq Converge With Traditions Of Jazz On 10/2 At Painted Bride In Old City

Musical Traditions Of Iraq Converge With Traditions Of Jazz On 10/2 At Painted Bride In Old City

Source: Phil Sumpter

Philadelphia PA—"Jazz on Vine," Philadelphia's longest continuing jazz series, offers jazz enthusiasts from the region a rare opportunity to travel to the outer reaches of jazz as Iraqi-American recording artist Amir ElSaffar returns to the Bride with “Two Rivers." The concert takes place, Saturday, October 2nd at 8pm. Tickets are $25. Crush card holders are entitled to a 40% discount before September 22nd and 20% discount after. Students and seniors receive a 25% discount off tickets. For more information and ...

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.