Black Taj, by Black Taj

Black Taj

by Black Taj

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1.	Back to the Bridges 07:31	buy track
2.	Cinema Style 03:36	buy track
3.	Clover 05:56	buy track
4.	Self Soothing 01:53	buy track
5.	Roots 04:43	buy track
6.	Octastone 05:35	buy track
7.	Beyonder 05:44	buy track
8.	Red Jr. 03:48	buy track
9.	Woke Up Tired 05:21	buy track

about

Though details are fuzzy, a scouring of the cyber-chives dates Black Taj’s origins to the summer of 2000. Around that time, Idyll Sword-mates Dave Brylawski (former guitarist for Polvo) and Grant Tennille discovered—via an intense exchange of emails—a shared desire to deviate from the acoustic wanderings of the Swords and to return to their first love: the crunch of cone-rattling chords courtesy of alternating electrical current. Soon this soul-searching turned into a quest for co-conspirators. The guitarists turned to old friends for their new, still unnamed project. By fall of 2000 Dave had recruited former Polvo bandmate Steve Popson on bass, while Tennille asked Golden drummer Jon Theodore to join. With Brylawski in NYC, Theodore in Baltimore, and Popson and Tennille in North Carolina, Black Taj’s long distance love affair began.

Before long, Theodore left for the considerably more global pastures of The Mars Volta. His sizeable shoes were amply filled by Chapel Hill welder/ drumming legend Tom Atherton. Though touring still proved impossible, the band managed several recording sessions at Washington's National Recording Studio with engineering mastermind Jonathan Kreinik. In 2003 they hit the road, albeit briefly, with an East Coast excursion supporting Trans Am, which yielded the now infamous "Black Taj: Beyond The Fire" bootleg.

Reinvigorated by a year of reflection and inspired by the possibilities offered in the new SuperQuanic Studio built by Cherry Valence member Brian Quast and nestled in Raleigh, North Carolina, Black Taj decided to return to the studio with new ideas and a new urgency. With Quast and Polvo/Libraness guitarist Ash Bowie at the board, the full-length recording began to materialize on 1/4-inch tape. Around the same time, the band also embarked on a short East Coast tour with the Fucking Champs.

By mid-2005 the end of the recording of the self-titled CD was insight. While their journey has been far from easy, neither time, distance, nor acts of God have stopped Brylawski and crew from realizing what their namesake's architect, Shah Jahan, could not: a lovingly built paean to an awe-inspiring structure. Replace gleaming marble minarets with the six-string sorcery of the sixties and seventies, Black Taj’s sound is angular and expansive, dense and dynamic, chaotic yet unerringly melodic. In that they might be closer to the Shah's vision than he would likely imagine—ambitious, majestic, and made of solid rock.

credits

released October 25, 2005

Black Taj is Thomas Atherson, Dave Brylawski, Grant Tennille and Steve Popson

Songs 1,3,4 recorded at Track and Field Studios, Carrboro, NC by Ash Bowie, Nick Petersen and John Byrd. Additional Recordings by Nick Petersen.

Songs 2,5,7 recorded at Duck Kee, Mebane, NC by Jerry Kee and Ash Bowie. Additional recording by Jerry Kee.
Songs 6,8,9 recorded at NRS, Washington DC by Jonathan Kreinik.

Mixed at Lucky Cat, San Francisco by Phil Manley

All songs @Kitchen Puff Music (BMI)except 2,6,8 @Prayer Flag Music

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Black Taj Chapel Hill, North Carolina

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