BOWERY ELECTRIC

Lawrence Chandler and Martha Schwendener formed Bowery Electric in late 1993 and played their first show together at Brownie's in New York City in January 1994. With drummer Michael Johngren completing the trio, Bowery Electric played shows across the East Coast and recorded a double seven inch single with Kramer that they released on their own Hi-Fidelity label.

In the fall of 1994, very impressed by the debut single set, kranky got in touch with the band. The debut, self-titled album was recorded with Mike Deming at Studio .45 in Hartford, CT in January 1995. Bowery Electric was released on compact disc and vinyl in mid-1995. As The Wire described it, Bowery Electric "weave chilled downbeat dirges via hazy sheets of distorted guitar (that sound as though they were recorded underwater), stumbling sluggish percussion and benumbed male/female vocals... the album works as a sustained moodpiece...". Or, as Chris Wodskou put it in the Sept. 1995 issue of Exclaim!, "Bowery Electric shimmer in the way a 20 foot sheet of metal shimmers and resonates when vibrated. A sharp pop confection with the blunt force of a three-alarm headache."

Simon Reynolds' seminal post-Rock article in the November 1995 issue of The Wire placed Bowery Electric in the forefront of "a distinctively American post-rock." The band returned to Studio .45 to work on the second full length release with engineer Rich Costley. With the acquisition of samplers, the band's song writing process (which had always started with the bass track and drum beats) expanded. The resulting album, Beat, featured a drummer on four out of ten tracks, with plenty of subtly sampled beats and bass tones anchoring the bottom end. Lawrence Chandler told Alternative Press that "technologically [Beat] is the beginning of us learning our way around a proper sampler and software which allows us to work with samples on the computer. We can sample ourselves, manipulate sounds, create our own beats and basically work with fewer restrictions." Beggar's Banquet licensed Beat for release in the U.K. and Europe and with drummer Wayne Magruder added to the group, Bowery Electric began tours of the U.K. and North America.

In July of 1997 Lawrence, Martha, and Wayne played in the U.K., which included a John Peel Session, recorded on 20th July, broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on 7th August. Melody Maker reviewed a show in and noted that "for two people to be able to create such a huge, rolling epic sound is surprising; what really hits hard is just how huge it can be, how the inarguable and pulverising beauty of BE's sound simply forces a slacked out crowd into its swell." Beggars Banquet released Vertigo, a collection of remixes of Beat tracks by Main, Third Eye Foundation, Chasm, Witchman, Immersion and others.

Lushlife was released by Beggars Banquet in 2000 and the duo has not released any recordings as Bowery Electric since. Martha released Sola, an album as Echostar on DJ Shadow's Shadow Records in 2003. Lawrence continues to record for various projects.

Brain in The Wire

Brainwashed 3xCD, BRAIN004 US

Bowery Electric exclusive track:

• Saved (Read/Write/Error remix by Thread)

Lushlife

February 28, 2000
Beggars Banquet LP/CD, BBQ 213 UK/US

Tracklist:

1. Floating World - [MP3]
2. Lushlife - [MP3]
3. Shook Ones - [MP3]
4. Psalms of Survival
5. Soul City - [MP3]
6. Freedom Fighter - [MP3]
7. Saved - [MP3]
8. Deep Blue
9. After Landing - [MP3}
10. Passages

Nearly two years in the making, Bowery Electric's Lushlife takes even greater strides forward. The end result is the meticulous product the band's new state-of-the-art, computer-based, electronic music studio in the heart of Brooklyn—a studio which allows them to see visual representations of every waveform, and opens up new possibilities for songwriting and arranging sound.

As with Beat, the touchstone is hip-hop—through the Bowery Electric filter. The beats are lithe, crisp and deep, and lines are perpetually blurred between samples and live instruments. Urban American experience is here, digested, abstracted, as on Eric B and Rakim's Paid In Full album, say, or Nas' "New York State Of Mind."

Lushlife teems with atomized sounds, each one opening a portal in the mix, importing a haze of space and history, evoking the distant buzz of the city beyond the studio. Throughout, gilded strings build, sway and exhale, plugging the music into the sumptuous melancholy of Philly soul, the emotive Mancini-inspired arrangements of Gaye and Mayfield, and the edgy soundtrack scores of David Shire ("All The Presidents Men", "The Taking Of Pelham 123"). Yet, with all the experiment and variation, Lushlife is actually quite a deliberate and enticing affair for the ear and mind.

Freedom Fighter

January 24, 2000
Beggars Banquet CD EP/12", BBQ 341 UK/US

Tracklist:

1. Freedom Fighter - [MP3]
2. Freedom Fighter (vocal remix)
3. Freedom Fighter (instrumental remix)
4. Soul City

Freedom Fighter video

Floating World / Lushlife

September 17, 1999
Beggars Banquet 12", BE 1 DJ UK/US

Tracklist:

1. Floating World - [MP3]
2. Lushlife - [MP3]

A Tribute to Spacemen 3

June 16, 2998
Rocket Girl 2xLP/CD, RGIRL 2 UK

Bowery Electric exclusive track:

• Things'll Never Be the Same - [MP3]

Blow Up

November 3, 1997
Happy Go Lucky 12", HAPPY 013 US

Tracklist:

1. Blow Up
2. Electro Sleep

Vertigo

August 25, 1997
Beggars Banquet 2xCD, BBQ 315 UK/US

Tracklist:

1. 1. Fear of Flying - [MP3]
   2. Fear of Flying (Chasm Mix)
   3. Black Light (Osymyso Mix)
2. 1. Without Stopping (Witchman Mix) - [MP2]
   2. Coming Down (Immersion Mix)
   3. Black Light (Dunderhead Mix)
   4. Empty Words (Twisted Science Mix)
   5. Fear of Flying (Third Eye Foundation Mix)
   6. Elementary Particles (Main Mix) - [MP2]

Fear of Flying video:

Coming Down

July 21, 1997
Beggars Banquet 12", BOW2 UK

Tracklist:

1. Coming Down (Immersion Mix)
2. Empty Words (Twisted Science Mix)
3. Black Light (Osymyso Mix)
4. Black Light (Dunderhead Mix)

Without Stopping

July 21, 1997
Beggars Banquet 12", BOW1 UK

Tracklist:

1. Without Stopping (Witchman Mix)
2. Fear of Flying (Chasm Mix)
3. Beat (Disjectia Mix)

Beat

November 12, 1996
Beggars Banquet LP/CD, BBQ 188
Kranky LP/CD, KRANK 014

Tracklist:

1. Beat - [MP3]
2. Empty Words
3. Without Stopping
4. Under The Sun
5. Fear Of Flying - [MP3]
6. Looped
7. Black Light
8. Inside Out
9. Coming Down - [MP3]
10. Postscript
11. Low Density (unnoted)

Wayne Magruder: drums

"This is rock really sounding like the future, hip hop freed from ego, opened up and lost to the environment—and it sounds absolutely fucking fantastic." - Melody Maker

"A benchmark album." - The Wire

"So Beat evidences a (post-rock) band have actually set foot in dance clubs, admired the lulling poignancy of Eno's Discreet Music and listened to Scorn's essential isolationist hip-hop albums Gyral and Logghi Barogghi. Bowery Electric add the most irradiated guitar tones since MBV's Loveless." - Alternative Press

Bowery Electric

August 16, 1995
Kranky LP (blue vinyl)/CD, KRANK 007

Tracklist:

1. Sounds in Motion
2. Next to Nothing - [MP3]
3. Long Way Down
4. Another Road
5. Over and Over
6. Deep Sky Objects - [MP3]
7. Slow Thrills - [MP2]
8. Out of Phase
9. Drift Away - [MP3]

Michael Johngren: Drums

[untitled]

1994
Hi-Fidelity Recordings 2x7", HI-FI 001 US

Tracklist:

1. Drop
2. Let Me Down
3. Head on Fire
4. Only Sometimes

John Dale: drums

© 1996-2007 Brainwashed Inc.