Karl Blau

Perhaps best known for being the bass player of EARTH’s releases “Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light” parts I and II, or for being a faithful Saltbreaker as well as one of the Tortured Souls for Laura Veirs, maybe the liner notes of Matthew E. White’s release for Domino Records in 2012 “Big Inner,” or at least for his solo K releases that you know the name Karl Blau. If you’ve heard enough of the music Blau has been involved in, you know that for Blau variety is the spice; and the spice is the life. Including the several underground yet well-displayed pop albums of the 2000s on K and Marriage Records, Blau’s solo releases alone number almost 40 spanning an instrumental reggae version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite to a peck of grunge versions of songs covering women of the West Coast. ‘Eclectic,’ one may even consider using ’eccentric.’ In 2003, Blau started self-releasing his albums on CDr to subscribing fans. What became KLAPS is to finish the series up to #42 this year 2014 with the release of the remaining 9 KLAPS releases. KLAPS started out as Kelp! Monthly which monthly sent out full-length albums, then 14 months and 14 issues later, Kelp! Monthly became Kelp Lunacy, and finally KLAPS for Kelp Lunacy Advanced Plagiarism Society. KLAPS releases come out less frequently, though according to Blau that’s going to change in the next 6 months. Blau’s studio musicianship has appeared on many of Laura Veirs albums and on Microphones/Mount Eerie recordings, on Lori Goldston’s recordings, Little Wings, Nicholas Krgovich, Chain and the Gang, Calvin Johnson, and Blau’s bass on EARTH’s Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Vol 1 and 2. Among the many analog recordings of the last decade Blau has produced several Your Heart Breaks albums, many of LAKE’s records, the Bundles album as well as the first two Malaikat Dan Singa recordings, Angelo Spencer et les Haut Sommets, Hospitality’s first EP, and Matthew E. White’s debut album “Big Inner.” Touring solo and playing bass with D+, drums with Your Heart Breaks, bass/keyboards/guitar/vocals with Laura Veirs, drums/guitar/bass with Phil Elverum, opening for Kimya Dawson & with EARTH over the past 20 years Blau has taken his varieties of music to 4 continents with over a dozen tours across the UK, the EU and many more across the U.S.A., Japan and Australia. In recent years Karl Blau has donned the saxophone with Lovers Without Borders, formed a grunge band around his voice and rhythm guitar called West Coast Chalice, and is beginning execution of a record with producer Tucker Martine where he’ll front a classic Nashville-style country soul album finishing the stroke started with the 7” single “That’s How I Got To Memphis.” D+ continues to write songs together preparing for their 7th or 8th album. 9 new KLAPS releases (KLAPS 042 is the last of the KLAPS series) are waiting to see the light of day including 2 straight up Karl Blau originals, one jazz meets nature record, one fictional drama of an anti-establishmentarian, and one country-blues version of the classic reggae album “Life of Contradiction” by Joe Higgs.