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Festival News: ROSfest Announce Resistor For 2012 Edition

Posted on Tuesday, September 20 @ 23:00:00 UTC by nightowl

Everything has to start somewhere, and often with someone. And in the case of Resistor, US composer and musician Steve Unruh is the proverbial it. An established solo artist with plenty of albums to his name, he is well known for his folk-oriented, acoustic art rock. But a decade or so into his solo career, the need for performing music with a harder hitting sound starts to grow alongside the need to perform material with more of an improvisational character. Enter Rob Winslow. An electronic engineer like Unruh, the two colleagues start to jam together sometime around 2005. And a few months later another colleague joins them, namely maintenance electrician Barry Farrands. With bass and drums covered by Rob and Barry the jams continue, and songs are written. But something is missing, and the missing element eventually turns out to be Fran Turner. Another colleague and electronic engineer, providing atmospheres with the guitar the former trio had imagined they would need a keyboard player to provide.

The foursome are still jamming, but along the way there has been a good number of live concerts too. More importantly, three full length productions have been crafted by these colleagues and fine musicians as well. Albums covering a vast musical canvas, from americana-inspired mellow classic rock on one hand to more sophisticated material closing in on 70's Kansas in expression. From acoustic dominated themes referencing Unruh's extensive back catalogue as a solo artist to darker, harder hitting sequences closer to metal in sound. From short and concise songs to improvised excursions and, in the most extreme, an elaborately constructed epic tale clocking in at just under 40 minutes. The latter a creation that should interest many on a lyrical as well as musical level, a story named "The Land of No Groove." A tall tale where good music, at least to some extent, allegorically replace the holy grail as the object of quest desire. The Secret Island Band Jams from 2011 is the most recent CD to be issued by Resistor. And like their first two excursions into the universe of recorded music, a CD that bears testimony to the quality and diversity in the current US progressive rock scene. Everything has to start somewhere. And one might hope that we're still hovering around the opening era for this fine band.

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[Source: RosFest]

Posted in Festival News