The ByrneBand is an electrified string ensemble with mandolin, electric guitar, DJ and keyboard programmer. With samples, effects, and amplification, the ByrneBand makes a graffiti-wall of ambient noise." –Australian Financial Review In these great times is a collection of pieces written for the ByrneBand (voice, violin, cello, mandolin, electric guitar, bass, and keyboards). The music combines hard-edged post-minimal instrumental pieces with vocal tracks suggesting warped German cabaret songs. Added to the mix are electronic soundscapes. Together they form a CD that blurs the boundaries between experimental new music, world music and rock'n'roll. For this project Byrne is joined by the sound designer Steve Adam who contributes two pieces and adds an electronic element to the gritty amplified sound of the ByrneBand. The title "In these great times" is taken from an ironic text written in the 1930s by the Austrian writer/critic Karl Kraus. Listen

Track List
Part I
1. Quick Music for violin, cello, guitar, bass, keyboards is an electric instrumental piece, which uses repetition and complex polyrhythms to create high-energy music. listen

2. Transition for processed voices: multiple voices create an otherworldly siren song

3. Lazy Afternoon for voice, violin, cello, guitar, bass, keyboards places the Marlene Dietrich paen to nature into a nightmarish drone environment. listen

4. Ascension

5. Processional

Part II
6. Prologue: Steve Adam creates a soundscape, which transplants musical riffs into a disembodied electronic context.

7. Layers

8. Red Funk puts a Bertolt Brecht/Hanns Eisler tune into a 70s disco, funk context

9. Music in Six

10. In these great times for violin, cello, guitar, bass, keyboards is a twisted cabaret setting of a satiric political text by Karl Kraus

The ByrneBand
Steve Adam, Electronics
Tullia Ashton-Lomax, Violin
Andrew Byrne, Keyboards & Bass
Howard Chaston, Violin
Peter Head, Cello & Guitar
Evan Meagher, Keyboards & Guitar
Robyn Winslow, Voice
Jethro Woodward, Bass & Mandolin

Recorded by Neil Kelly, Polka Records, Melbourne 2000
Lazy Afternoon recorded by Michael Hewes

Mixed and additional sond by Steve Adams
Mastered by Marc tetz, Moose Mastering

To order in the US
To order in the Aus