Mark Solotroff's second band: a power electronics group that outgrew its New York start and settled into a long run in Chicago.
Bloodyminded formed in New York in 1995, when Intrinsic Action, the group Mark Solotroff had led since 1984, came to an end. Solotroff and Megan Emish started it; the band soon moved to Chicago, and Solotroff has been its only constant member. The first CD, Trophy (1995), was the first release on his own label, BloodLust!, and BloodLust! has issued almost everything since.
True Crime (2002) set the pattern for the larger records: Solotroff, Steve Marvin and Ed Knigge at the core, with Pieter Schoolwerth, Megan Emish and guests recording in Brooklyn, Chicago, Italy and Japan. Discogs credits include Andrea Chiaravalli of Iugula-Thor and Akifumi Nakajima of Aube. On Gift Givers (2005) Mike IX Williams of Eyehategod sings; Magnetism (2006) has lyrics in English and Spanish co-written by Isidro Reyes, and Solotroff has called it his most personal record.
Between albums the band issued the Phases series (2006 to 2012; the third part a box of three 7"s on Rococo Records) and a run of live recordings, from Behind the Green Door to two No Fun Fest sets. Within the Walls (2013) was prepared in Chicago and finished in six other American cities and Mexico City; Pitchfork's Grayson Currin heard "harrowing drones, feedback bursts, mutated screams". Solotroff called the self-titled album of 2019 the definitive work of the band's first 25 years.
Solotroff's ties to the Italian scene run through the whole history: he has described ordering Mauthausen Orchestra cassettes as one of his first contacts with it, and he later joined Andrea Cernotto in The Sodality.
I keep Bloodyminded at Tier II: a thirty-year catalogue, almost all of it on the band's own label, and one of the longest-running American power electronics bands.
VAGO · c. the Anthropocene