(photo credits: Lucio Carbonelli)
Talibam! is:
Kevin Shea - Drums,
Matt Mottel - Synthesizer
Hailing from Brooklyn, New York Talibam! have been making their presence felt since 2003 through numerous live gigs, self-released cdr’s and label releases. Talibam! have toured Europe twice and will be going back later this year. They have releases on Azul Discografica, Evolving Ear, Ecstatic Peace, Gaffer Records, Blackest Rainbow, and others.
Matt Mottel's visage should be familiar to anyone who's been going to shows in NYC in the past 8 years. He's been hanging around NYC clubs since he was like 16, and dropping electric mind bombs with his synthesizer in those clubs nearly as long with folks like Awesome Color, Deerhunter, Akron/Family, Kenny Wollesen, Chris Corsano, Ras Moshe, Cooper-Moore, Sean Meehan, and his new band Shadow Maps.
Kevin Shea's drumming and stage gymnastics have been gazed at with wide wonder through his membership in bands like Storm & Stress (Touch & Go), Coptic Light (No Quarter), People (I and Ear), Peter Evans Quartet (Firehouse 12), Sexy Thoughts (rcarchives.com), Mostly Other People Do The Killing (Hot Cup), etc.
Videos: YouTube
Site: trashfactory.net/talibam
MySpace: myspace.com/talibam & myspace.com/kevinshea
Talibam! Interview with Todd Brooks in Foxy Digitalis.
Talibam! Interview with P Funk in Tiny Mix Tapes.
Nice show review by Nate Dorr from Impose Magazine.
DEAR COLLEAGUES:
Talibam! looked up one day from playing their instruments only to learn years had passed and with detrimental cultural results. All the theory in the world couldn't save them from an uninspired Whitney Biennial show presenting 3-second concept art installations or a skateboard-graffiti faux community based on conspicuous individuation. Interpretational skills couldn't save them from trendy zines with picks of naked OCD narcissists and scene-burndened trash-hipster writing or incessant name-dropping. Its like that movie Idiocracy -- Talibam! woke up and heard histrionic video game pop melodies ornamented by distortion pedals over steady dude beats as Atari's Mario Bros. Talibam! played Atari too as kids, even played pro competitions, but knew there was a time to move away -- that nostalgia is a tool not a feeling. Talibam! also heard spaztic chop metal-prov over jangly guitar dissonance borrowed from the Shellac school, and A.A. psych beard mess hall wank chump rock, and yes Talibam! even heard refined obsessive bedroom junk reapto...
Talibam! is something else. Talibam! does not make apologies for its existence, nor does Talibam! dumb anything down by assuming you are stuck on a scene and only know how to appreciate one type of method or sound -- it doesn't come equipped with celebrity colors, drugs, buds, or ... Talibam! goes sonically here and there because other bands are busy defining themselves by the what and the how. Talibam! respects life in the way a novelist doesn't write the exact same book word for word twice. In music, somehow bands get away with doing the same thing night after night. Compositional nuance masks a lack of ideas. If all you do is harnass and repeat ideas you won't win Talibam's respect. Talibam! is bored to death with your ideas -- we get the point -- you spent a bunch of hours in a rehearsal space and when your muscles memorized the movements you were a so-called tight band -- you improvise but you have no dynamics or humility...boring!
There is a party, and at that party Talibam! has a bone to pick. All the hyped up bands and artists are there -- the famous people name-drop obscure artists who are hyped in the magazines. Someone whips out a realistic tape player but the levels are too hot. Popping percussion lands on analogue textures like a brick of firecrackers at the end of a shadow puppet play in China, or like the future of shivering pirana with chattering teeth in a glacier melt-off river in the Amazon, or a hail storm against the ocean in the south and fish splashing against the surface. The popping sound when a suction cup releases. Or stepping on plastic bubble wrap. These are pretty threatening sounds in a music community rampant with fashion, so everyone leaves the party except for the smart people. Are you one of the smart people, or are you going to go home and listen to all the famous people play who care about you and your emotions and cry to mommy when Talibam! ultimately doesn't give a shit about your look, your identity, your tastes, or your trendy opinions?
WAH WAH WAH -- who gives a shit, smart ass...
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT Talibam!
"Their name-- taken from a New York Post headline celebrating American bombings in Afghanistan-- may be a joke, but their music is far from a punchline. Not that it's super-serious either: Most of Talibam!'s songs are rollicking, blood-pumping workouts that surely take a few cases of Red Bull to complete. But these guys have sharp skills and diverse ideas and can do a lot more than just sprint. Their music evokes the raucous party-noise of Hal Russell or the Sun Ra Arkestra, but also the agility of ensembles led by David Ware or William Parker. On top of that, Talibam! adds prog and math-rock flourishes akin to Don Caballero and Battles." - Mark Masters, Pitchfork Media
"...Talibam! have created an eclectic, muscular rock/noise-inflected Improv all their own." "...things fall apart wonderfully...out of sheer exuberance and pure adrenalin pushing the musicians and the music up to and over the edge." "The energy level is worthy of Borbetomagus, but it spills out in all directions, from demented free noise polka to post-Prog funk chorale...The cumulative effect of it all is pretty mindblowing...Talibam! could well be the most exciting improv outfit you'll hear all year...this is more a point of no return than a point of departure...the view from the cliff top is magnificent." - Dan Warburton, Wire Magazine
"Like the Sun City Girls before them, Talibam! are musical omnivores and uncanny telepaths. Collectively, they have digested everything from free-jazz, Americana and noise, to Afro-pop, garage and electroacoustic composition and connect the dots between these idioms to create spontaneous and vivid constellations of sound."
- Forced Exposure
"Lately I've been hearing the terms “skronk,” “kronk,” “krank,” “crunk” and “krump.” What do they mean? I don't know. I think this Talibam track is half crunk and half krank. Maybe half spunk and half skronk. It's my favorite song right now. I've been listening to it a lot while playing Word Whomp on my computer and paying my taxes online. For people like me who don't do drugs, I also recommend listening to this while watching QVC." - Marnie Stern (Kill Rock Stars) guest reviewer for Paper Thin Walls
"...Talibam!’s songs fan out and strive to break free of idioms and constraints without losing their ear for beauty or the "natural;’ as ballsy as their pan-stylistic maneuvering may be, it’s never counterintuitive or forced." - (P Funk) Tiny Mix Tapes
"The music matches the mania of the packaging perfectly as the trio let loose a …blast of sonic sludge that gleefully destroys everything in it's path, as if on a mission." - Edwin Pouncey, WIRE MAGAZINE
"Floating between free jazz and no wave, Talibam! conjures the holy ghosts of New York City's musical underground while providing a fresh, albeit sweaty, perspective on the politics of noise." - Printed Matter
"Agro-improv troupe Talibam! will surely harsh your mellow. A cross between noise-rock, free-jazz and unabashad fuckeduppedness, Talibam! is audio terrorism at its most playful. Led by drummer Kevin Shea and the hideous gurgles of what might be Speak & Spells (Matt Mottel, synth) suffocating under distortion pedals (Ed Bear, feedbacksaphone)." - Chris Weingarten, Village Voice |
Releases
click on cover for info
Talibam!
The Excusable Earthling LP
PSR-0022
2007
Released on 9/11/07!
 
Listen to the entire album
on Last FM now!
Various Artists
Getting Rid of the Glue LP
PSR-0016
2006
Listen to the entire album
on our Podcast now!
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