Flowmotion CD Release Party with HOT BUTTERED RUM

Initially formed as an acoustic string band, seven years of constant touring has transformed Hot Buttered Rum into a plugged-in, percussive powerhouse that wows critics and fans alike. Their left-coast rock reveals an access to jazz, country, and world music that few groups can match. While the band's music belies simple categorization, its songwriting and stage chemistry delights listeners at every turn.

Hot Buttered Rum’s story is one of evolution. The “high altitude bluegrass” era captured on their first studio album, In These Parts, found the band enjoying success at such diverse stages as the Newport Folk Festival, Bonnaroo, Grey Fox, High Sierra, Wakarusa, and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Along the way, the group shared the stage with some of today's most accomplished artists, including Phil Lesh, Bela Fleck, Ben Harper, and Nickel Creek’s Chris Thile. In 2006, acoustic pioneer Mike Marshall produced Hot Buttered Rum’s second studio album, Well-Oiled Machine, and captured the sound of a hard-touring band charting its course along the highways and byways of American music.

The continued expansion of Hot Buttered Rum’s sound and writing found a home in Live in the Northeast. More electric pickups made their way to the stage, along with an increased focus on songwriting. As the band developed a heavier sound, fans and press began to describe them as a rock band with acoustic instruments. It therefore came as no surprise when, following the departure of mandolinist Zac Matthews, the other founding members Aaron Redner (fiddle and mandolin), Bryan Horne (upright bass), Nat Keefe (guitar), and Erik Yates (banjo, guitar, woodwinds, and resophonic guitar) joined forces with Everyone Orchestra conductor and drummer Matt Butler.

The new lineup has recently emerged from San Francisco’s Mission Bells Studios, where they recorded Limbs Akimbo under the watchful eye of producer Tim Bluhm (The Mother Hips). Featuring guest appearances by Jackie Greene (Skinny Singers, Phil Lesh and Friends) and Zach Gill (ALO, Jack Johnson), the album marks the beginning of a new creative phase. Limbs Akimbo now signals the arrival of a highly matured, impressively listenable, stirringly rocking, and pleasantly poppy sound. Proving himself a forceful producer, Bluhm has struck an impressive balance between highlighting the multi-instrumental, cross-genre elements of the band’s sound while avoiding the contemporary trappings of music that is complex and different merely for the sake of complexity and difference. The result is beautifully paradoxical: a tremendous, minimalist pop album full of hints, teases, and cameos of the band’s complex musical personality. In “Something New,” Keefe recites the familiar wedding adage “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” And right there, in a nutshell, is Limbs Akimbo: an album that is both an elegy and reincarnation of Hot Buttered Rum’s past sound, that borrows heavily from the rock pantheon while sprinkling in just a little of everything else. Limbs Akimbo is an album that evidences the acoustic string band of yesteryear while unapologetically propelling into the scene a mature left-coast, drum-driven, pop-rock band.

www.hotbutteredrum.net

1) Hidden beneath the bows of the Northwest evergreens is found Flowmotion, one of Seattle’s most distinctly diverse rock bands. This is an act that fails to fall into an easily packaged genre, succeeds in defying stereotypes, and throws one hell of a party no matter what city, town or festival the five-piece band happens to land in.

Flowmotion is a name well known in the Seattle live music scene and becoming increasingly familiar up and down the West Coast, yet largely unheard of throughout much of the country. The band has managed to remain in the “best-kept-secret” vault of the live music scene, all the while honing a live show that often exceeds the size of the stage they might find themselves performing on. A Flowmotion show is a swooping ride through the fingers of rock fueled by the expert musicianship of its five parts, producing a sound that’s unmistakably huge.

It’s nearly impossible to mention the name Flowmotion in the Pacific Northwest without bringing forth a mention of Summer Meltdown, the annual music and camping festival the band has hosted for nearly a decade. As the years have slipped by, the band has watched the annual gathering grow from a backyard bash to one of the region’s most well-attended summer festivals – a celebration that’s expected to bring as many as 4,000 revelers to the foothills of the Cascade Mountains this summer. While Flowmotion has always been the headliner at the festival, they’ve also shared the stage with national artists including Steve Kimock, Michael Kang, Jackie Greene, Bill Frisell, Vince Herman, Garaj Mahal, Zilla, Bassnectar, Yard Dogs Road Show and Buckethead.

There are many music fans in the Northwest and beyond who will remember Flowmotion from their years of touring and festival appearances and expect the same band as they heard in the early part of this decade. While the spirit around which Clauson built the band is very much alive, the sound has evolved with Flowmotion incorporating more rock edginess without forgetting the dance floor grooves that have brought them this far. Whereas Clauson previously authored most of the Flowmotion repertoire, songwriting duties have since been delegated amongst the band resulting in set lists that skip across the spectrum reminding listeners of Zeppelin at some moments and Parliament at others.

t’s been a steady climb for Flowmotion over the past decade, but it seems like the Northwest is going to have to give up its secret and let everyone in on what Flowmotion brings to the table – and the dance floor.

2) FlowMotion/Strava Škola je kolektiv sacinjen od šest osoba, konkretnije cetiri mc-a/repera, jednog producenta, te šestog covjeka, zaduženog za podršku i menadžment. Imena ovih ljudi ce biti navedena u sljedecoj rubrici. Kao sastav/grupa/ekipa mc-eva, FlowMotion postoji tri godine, a prvobitnu postavu su cinili Melody (Doktrina), Fire, Gaggo (Gaggotiva) i Malcho (koji više nije clan grupe). Grupa nastaje iz potrebe cetiri mlada mc-a, da se udruže i zapocnu rad na svim segmentima onoga što Hip-Hop kao muzika, umjetnost propagira, nudi i dozovoljava, te tako usavrše svoje vještine i oforme sebi svojstven zvuk i unikatnu ideju i filozofiju. Nedugo zatim pridružio im se Chane, koji je još uvijek pripadnik kolektiva. 2008. je zapocet, a 2009. objavljen naš prvi "ulicni" (demo) album - "Bili Smo Drukciji", te su se ekipi nakon toga pridružili Fantom, mladi producent iz Kalesije, koji više nije dio tima i Kolatera, beatmaker iz Sarajeva, koje je tu i doprinosi ideji cetvorke. Ime "Strava Škola" ima dualnu funkciju, kao i znacenje, a pod jedan, radi se o projektu niza koncertnih aktivnosti u Sarajevu i šire, u cilju doprinošenja razvoja i napretka kulture i umjetnosti na ovim prostorima, te promocije mladih umjetnika u Sarajevu. Drugi termin oznacava organizaciju koja se bavi istim, a u bližoj buducnosti to ce postati primarni naziv ovog kolektiva, kojem pripada Emin Canovic, kao podrška, menadžer i bitan clan na organizacijskom nivou. Zvuk i ideja koju razvijamo može se konkretizirati, ali ne i definisati sa nekoliko termina, a to su: Bunt, Društvena kritika, Satira te sve ovo sažeto u umjetnicku Sociološku filozofsku misao i ideju. Kolektiv trenutno radi na novom projektu, mixtape-u "Stvar Je U Masnoci", koji izlazi na ulice u Januaru 2010.