press kit

+++use me!+++
whoomp here is the electronic press kit.  use as you need.  
Biography:

    Since 2001, Holzkopf has been developing a style of hypnotic and frenetic dance music made from a mishmash of homemade tape collages, blown out drum machine beats, dumpstered Chinese pop cassettes, raw data noise, barely controled feedback and smashed and grabbed found sounds.  The sound is remenicent of proto-industrial, disco, hip-hop, global psychedelia, gospel and breakcore synthesized into a complete unique whole unlike any one component part.  This is futurist and anarchist music made on cheap gear, recorded live to tape or dusty old hard drives.  It embodies the spirits of rotting architecture and 100 year old brothels, the wide open spaces of the Canadian prairies and the angst and anger of battling slum-lords, debt and panic.  More than anything else though, the music is a celebration. Celebation, after all, is the best form of protest.  Sharing the stage with Princesse Rotative, Cex, Electric Kettle, Andrew Duke, Venetian Snares, Fanny, Maladroit, Botborg, the Shearing Pinx, Sam Shalabi, Knurl, Emil Beaulieau and many others over multiple tours through Canada and Europe (in squats, clubs, backyards and under bridges), a Holzkopf performance is always a spontaneous, raw and one of a kind experience.

Selected Press:




The Wire reviewing "This CD is an Apology":
    "Available in a limited edition of 500 and positively brimming with skewed refusenik attitude, this is the kind of release that makes life worth living. Whether you call it self-expresion or just self-indulgent, there's no denying the disquieting, invigorating impact of this kind of outsider art. It's the work of Jake Hardy, who, closeted in his Saskatoon home studio, churns out rampant, anarchic, hard-panned, distorted, skittering electronic mayhem, cramming his compositions with the raging abandoned fragments of a million hard disc edits, and imbuing them with the kind of restless mutant life that you'd normally encounter at the wrong end of a nuclear apocalypse. A track like the superbley named "No Guns No Pride" verges on the indescribable. It's a slurred, woozy, jangling mess, all uncoordinated strums and nervy tweaker breakbeats, which collapses into radioactive chaos before emerging like some primordial slug crawl doggedly to its choking conclusion. And this is just one of 13 misshapen gems herein, ranging from the squirming, screaming power electronics of "Toronto Riot" to the beaten, luminous rainbow of "101 Cans." For connoisseurs of the outer limits at least, the churning, squealing, yet somehow serene "Sonor Causes Whales To Kill Themselves" is worth the price of entry alone."

Sound Cloud:


Video:  



 

High Resolution Promo Picture / Mugshot:
download here

Ryder:

holzkopf is a simple project to host.  A PA system with sub woofers that can fill the room, a meal, one night's accomodation, beer for the show and two 1/4" inputs that are within one half meter of where holzkopf is set up.  It is preferable to have performances off the stage and within the audience.  

The cost for booking holzkopf depends on the club, squat or promoter.  Basically if the concert or event is making money, a fair price can be negotiated based on the profit for the event.  The average is $100 or 100 euro per show, however travel, experience and meeting people are far more important things.  holzkopf will play in your house, backyard, squat, speak easy, art studio or anywhere else for food, shelter and kindness.