Read full Press release by David Stubbs here
“I have always taken a cue from visual art that my work should be thematic,” says
Kumo aka producer and writer Jono Podmore. “A concept as the basis for a piece of
visual art is considered an absolute necessity but in music we shy away from this,
largely due to the excesses of the self-indulgent and tasteless ’concept albums’ of
the Seventies.”
On Slave Dances (Seven Portraits), his finest and most rigorously thought through
collection of music to date, Kumo draws on all of his strengths – his mastery of
digital and analogue electronics, from Protools to his beloved Theremin, his depth of
historical knowledge, ranging from the roots of African-American music to the
European avant garde to contemporary Techno, his research skills as a Professor at
the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany and his advanced conceptual sense
which does indeed place Slave Dances at more than a cut above the addled, bucolic
whimsy of conceptual English Prog rock…”