_Ancien groupe des membres de Wolf Eyes, Hair Police décoiffe (je sais, c'est facile), mais c'est pour mieux les faire marcher au pas, vos cheveux (encore mieux !). Sérieusement, pour les rares chanceux qui sont venus voir le groupe japonais Offseason lors de la soirée Carte Blanche au Luff, le mois dernier, dites vous que ce n'est pas aussi violent, mais beaucoup plus. Wolf Eyes avec en plus des cris, une batterie et une guitare: pas du tout du Wolf Eyes. Rugissant et chaotique, ce groupe de gros boeufs suants ne ressemble à rien d'existant.
_Une soirée pour amateurs de défoulement ou de dépassement de toutes les limites, de son comme d'énergie. Et ça pour seulement 5 euros: on est des oufs !

A PROPOS DE HAIR POLICE

Le groupe de noise expérimentale Hair Police est né en Janvier 2001 à Lexington, dans le Kentucky. Les membres originels étaient Robert Beatty, Ross Compton, Mike Connelly, Matt Minter, et Trevor Tremaine. Le groupe a sorti la cassette The History of Ghost Dad pour le jour de son premier concert, le 13 avril 2001. Comprton a arrêté de jouer dans le groupe à l'été 2001. Minter a quitté le groupe en Octobre 2002. Connely a démenagé vers le Michigan à la fin de l'année 2003 et a rejoint Wolf Eyes au Printemps 2005.

Le groupe a tourné très largement aux Etats-Unis, avec Wolf Eyes, Prurient, Kites, Graveyards, Heathen Shame, No Doctors, Nautical Almanac, Sightings, Mammal, Neon Hunk, et surtout Sonic Youth en Août 2004.

Ils ont fait paraître des disques sur des labels tels que Troubleman Unlimited, Hanson Records, Gods of Tundra, Freedom From, et Hospital Productions. Ils ont aussi sorti un disque parallèle sur Load Records avec Viki. Les membres de Hair Police ont aussi joué avec d'autres groupes tels que Wolf Eyes, Eyes and Arms of Smoke, Burning Star Core, Three Legged Race, Von Hemmling, ulysses, Warmer Milks, et ATTEMPT.

(traduit de wikipedia.org)

LA FOURMILLANTE TOURNEE EUROPEENE DE HAIR POLICE 2009

"Les HAIR POLICE ont brisé des ondes sinusoïdales et donné à des ingénieurs du son de quoi s’égratigner le menton à peu prés partout autour du globe depuis 2001. Les concerts de Hair Police sont grisants et carrément d’un autre monde, le groupe et le public hurlant ensemble des mantras entre les chansons. Toutes mes excuses pour sonner comme un attardé avec ce que je vais dire, mais, tu sais, c’est du vrai putain de rock’n’roll. Tandis que leurs concerts répondent souvent à une certaine esthétique (*ahem*… folie contrôlée), la discographie du groupe soutient une diversité surprenante – des territoires de drones, aux assauts auditifs, au pressentiment des randonnées de caravane au travers du véhicule astral. Ce n’est pas juste du Merzbow fracassant des casseroles et des pots, Hair Police a une vision (et je vous invite très fortement à formuler vos propres hypothèses sur ce que ça peut être).

Kenny Bloggins.

HAIR POLICE retournera en Europe pour sa première tournée internationale depuis 3 ans. Ils joueront dans de nombreux pays et villes pour la toute première fois. Les gusses tournent pour soutenir leur album « CERTAINTY OF SWARMS », que l’on pourra se procurer en vynil lors de leur tournée. HP aura aussi un vynil uniquement en vente pour sa tournée et intitulé « STAY IN BODIES », sorti sur Harbinger Sound. On se voit dans la fosse!"

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About Air Police

Hair Police formed in January 2001 in Lexington, Kentucky. The original line up was Robert Beatty, Ross Compton, Mike Connelly, Matt Minter, and Trevor Tremaine. The band released the History of Ghost Dad cassette to coincide with its first live show on April 13th, 2001. Compton stopped playing with the band in the summer of 2001. Minter left the band in October 2002. Connelly moved to Michigan at the end of 2003 and joined Wolf Eyes in the spring of 2005.

The band has toured extensively in the U.S. with Wolf Eyes, Prurient, Kites, Graveyards, Heathen Shame, No Doctors, Nautical Almanac, Sightings, Mammal, Neon Hunk, and most notably with Sonic Youth in August 2004.

They have released records through labels such as Troubleman Unlimited, Hanson Records, Gods of Tundra, Freedom From, and Hospital Productions. They have also released a split record on Load Records with Viki. Members of Hair Police have also played with other groups such as Wolf Eyes, Eyes and Arms of Smoke, Burning Star Core, Three Legged Race, Von Hemmling, ulysses, Warmer Milks, and ATTEMPT.

(from wikipedia.org)

HAIR POLICE EUROPEAN SWARM 2009

"HAIR POLICE have been shattering sine waves and giving sound engineers something to scratch their chin about all over the globe since 2001. Hair Police’s live show is exhilarating and otherworldly. The band and crowd shout mantras between songs. Apologies for sounding dumbtarded with what I’m about to say, but ya know, this is real rock and fucking roll. While their live show often subscribes to a certain aesthetic (*ahem* controlled insanity), Hair Police’s recorded repertoire maintains a surprising diversity – from zone out dronescapes, to full on aural assaults, to foreboding caravan treks across the astral plane. This isn’t just Merzbow bangin’ on pots and pans, Hair Police have a vision (and I totally invite you to hypothesize what that might be). Kenny Bloggins.

HAIR POLICE will be returning to Europe for their first tour across the seas in 3 years. They will be playing many countries and cities for the very first time. The boys are touring in support of their No Fun album "CERTAINTY OF SWARMS," which will be available on vinyl for this tour. HP will also have a limited tour only LP called "STAY IN BODIES," released by Harbinger Sound. See you all in the pit."

David Keenan/the Wire about Certainty Of Swarms, No Fun CD:

Back in 1970, while attempting to plot the future arc of rock and roll, Lester Bangs wrote “'I believe that real rock 'n' roll may be on the way out, just like adolescence as a relatively innocent transitional period is on the way out. What we will have instead is a small island of new free music surrounded by some good re-workings of past idioms and a vast Sargasso Sea of absolute garbage.” It still feels like the most far-sighted reading of the lifespan and evolution of rock music.
As a mainstream cultural force, rock is all but dead in the water, with what passes for rock music now closer to pantomime or vaudeville than any concept of energized ritual or instinctively avant garde hunch. All the way back to blues and early rockabilly, the proto-forms of rock were free and formally elastic. Replicable generic conventions always took a back seat to the higher calling of getting gone. When rock music began to self-consciously incorporate ideas absorbed from free jazz and avant garde sources (whether you want to locate it in the music of The Velvet Underground, The Stooges or Sonic Youth) it worked as a re-invigoration, a timely injection of the original liberating urge.
With mainstream rock a walking corpse, its revolutionary trajectory shot down and gone underground sometime in the late-60s/early-70, it has been down to the subterranean think-tanks to regenerate the form. That’s why so many people were excited about noise music: it felt like a new distillation of the break-out aspects of the original urge. But what of rock-as-rock? Again, Bangs got it right. Even the most exciting rock-based music coming out of the underground circa now feels self-consciously retro, more re-statements of previous breakthroughs than expansions of the form. No one has taken rock any further than Harry Pussy, The Dead C and Fushitsusha did in the 1990s. Most of the New Weird America groups have either compromised their art, regressed into folk proper or evolved into the kind of inspired genre-of-one realms of Matthew Valentine or Charalambides, while the most influential underground groups of the past decade, Wolf Eyes, Double Leopards, The Skaters, moved further from established rock tongue with every release.
In the year-zero euphoria of the new noise Hair Police have often been overlooked, their border-line identity between noise and rock, their use of ‘real’ instruments (bass and drums), even Mike Connelly’s comparative over-shadowing by the charismatic dream-team of fellow Wolf Eyes members John Olson, Nate Young and Aaron Dilloway, all contributing to their being taken less seriously than they should. But with Certainty Of Swarms, the trio of Connelly, Trevor Tremaine and Robert Beatty have birthed one of the most radical rock records of the post-noise age.
Sonically, Hair Police are schooled in all of the key modernist touch-stones that inform the current vanguard schools – Whitehouse, death metal, sound poetry, the avant garde of Alvin Lucier and Robert Ashley, free jazz, obscure psychedelic rock, Japanese noise – but unlike the bulk of their contemporaries, they also got levitation. The ‘rhythm’ section of Connelly on bass and – particularly – Tremaine on drums is one of the most gifted in modern rock and the combination of hyper-thyroid snare attacks and bone-bending bottom end means that they have the firepower, the physical élan, to drive home the most abstruse textural gambits without once having to flip your attention from your ass to your brain.
The opening track, “Strict”, bolsters the underlying flesh/metal gnosis, with vocals that sound like William Bennett in corpse paint accompanied by a tactile explosion of drums, electronics and guitar, all augmented by F/X as if to extend the very reach of the physical to more boldly erotic, self-invented ends. All of the Hair Police releases – not to say the bulk of sister band Wolf Eyes’ back catalogue – display a fascination with body horror and physical extension or regression, but there’s something about the comparatively hi-fi studio sound on Certainty Of Swarms that makes it seem like the most complete reification of the band’s obsessions to date.
The bulk of the tracks accumulate weight and impact through the sparest of means, building ominous environs through single bass hits and electronic alarm codes in a way that conflates mid-period Throbbing Gristle with primitive dub environs. There is no lead instrument to speak of, the jams are three-way and evenly balanced throughout, but it’s an undeniable joy when Beatty suddenly steps on a wah-wah pedal and peels off a heroically squealing solo from his home-burned electronics while Tremaine cracks open the kit like your dream memory of Rashied Ali.
Despite the energy levels, the album feels specifically keyed to deep listening. Themes crop up again and again, with motifs from “Intrinsic To The Execution” turning up in “Freezing Alone”, while the use of subliminal detail catches your ears differently with each spin. C. Spencer Yeh of Burning Star Core, a sometime collaborator with Hair Police, has talked of how their 2005 album, Constantly Terrified, took him months to figure out, only finally making sense when he left it on repeat while caught in a claustrophobic traffic jam. Certainty Of Swarms feels just as specifically keyed and it’s hard to think of another recent release that so perfectly combines instant gratification with the promise of unexplored depths.
But back to Bangs: in another unknowingly prescient piece on “The Greatest Album Ever Made” i.e. Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, he relates how a friend of his would take acid once a month in order to “blow all the bad shit outa my brain”. Bangs’ own method was to adapt the technique to daily spins of Reed’s free-noise opus. If you’re a jaded fan of rock music, still holding to its promise despite years in the wilderness and long-winded harangues by baldies with laptops, I suggest a similar course with Certainty Of Swarms. It may not clear out all the bad shit, but it might just make you believe all over again.