Cold is the Absence of Heat
(1995) Ultramodern Records

In this song, one drummer accents every three beats, one every four, and the other, every five. All three drummers only hit their accents together(celebrated with a grunt)every 60 beats, the smallest multiple of 3, 4, and 5. Pairs occur together at smaller multiples (3x4=12, 3x5=15, 4x5=20) and the going into and out of phase makes a catchy rhythm.

Balinese Gamelan music inspired the section where two drummers divide a rhythm and quasi-melody, making it ping pong between them. The ghostly horn echoes and soft drum rolls show that we don't always "have to be so loud."

We've used power tools in our performances for quite a while, but their effect was primarily visual (sparks) and rhythmic. This time we coax a melody, albeit a harsh one, from saw blades on metal. The reversed blade strikes rather than cuts, and speed changes vary the pitch. Don't try this at home kids!

David S. wrote this song on his computer.

This complicated song taxes our powers of concentration as one musician will play in sync with one other, then switch alliances and meters, eventually forming a unified consensus before fragmenting again.

A collaboration with choreographer Rosy Simas gave birth to the prototype for this song. We re-edited it later for performing without dancers.

Like Picasso's "Blue" period, we might look at this as the start of Savage Aural Hotbed's "Math is Art" period. The subject of a post rehearsal discussion/argument in which the dissenters eventually conceded that Math could (sometimes) be Art. We decided to simultaneously play time-signatures based on different numbers to get complex rhythms. In this number (pun intended), prime numbers are pitted against Latin and Turkish rhythms.