In addition to his work with the Washington, D.C. band The Caribbean, Matthew Byars is the creative mind behind Attorneys General.
Inspired by the classic Mission of Burma album, The Horrible Truth About Burma, in which that band’s Martin Swope used a reel-to-reel tape machine to “capture, loop, manipulate and destroy elements of the band’s sound in spontaneous and unexpected ways,” Byars has adapted the approach, working with groups of three to four players (aiming each time to assemble new configurations), sending their sounds through a mixing board which he controls, allowing him to “capture, loop, manipulate, and destroy the sounds they create.”
There are three new Attorneys General releases out now: Attorneys General Live at Ftarri, Tokyo (with Tetuz Akiyama and Elico Suzuki), Attorneys General Live at Pan-Pan, Birmingham (with Mark Sanders and Mark Hanslip), and Attorneys General Live at Horse Hospital, London (with Tara Cunningham, Mike O’Malley, and Alex McKenzie). These are released via Headache Journals and can be found on Bancamp via the label’s official page.
Byars is also central to the annual Stanine Festival in Washington, D.C., which is held at the home of the nonprofit group Rhizome DC, and is co-host of the NPR-distributed podcast, Essential Tremors, co-hosted by Lee Gardner.
We recently discussed the three new releases, the nature of improvised sound experiments, and much more.
Host/Producer: Jedd Beaudoin
Theme music: Torin Andersen
