Live at Studio 74, Fresno, CA
2 June 2009
Respectable Citizen is an electronic improv-core ensemble that simply eludes any classification beyond eclectic. Their sound has been described as everything from ambient, illbient, experimental electronic, drum n bass, dub electronic, down-tempo, lounge, raga-esque, space rock, prog rock, to noise. The group only assembles for gigs and recording sessions as its members are scattered up and down the west coast. Bruce Bennett (now back in San Francisco after a year “on the road” as a refugee from New Orleans in the wake of Katrina) navigates a multimodal musical space of resonant sonorities littered with arabesques, classical quotations, and melismatic melodies. Byron H. Diel, a shamanistic visionary from Fresno, California, articulates ever-shifting meters and polyrhythmic play across a sampled drumscape. Vance Galloway, Seattle’s most reclusive experimental electronic guru, sculpts the sound of his guitar through a wash of electronic manipulations from the spacious to the granulated. Michael Zbyszynski charms snakes and tantalizes the audience with heavy breathing and screaming saxophones. Together, they bring into play a dynamic and varied web of sound texture, rhythm, and melody sure to delight the connoisseur and the dilettante alike.
