Artist description Not exactly what anyone would call"easy listening."

Music Style Experimental Improvisation, Post-Modern, Post Rock, Post Jazz

Musical Influences Steve Tibbetts, Terje Rypdal, David Torn, David Fiuczynski, Robert Fripp

Similar Artists Steve Tibbetts, Terje Rypdal, David Torn, David Fiuczynski, Robert Fripp

Artist History Born and raised in sunny Southern California in 1953, Ted Killian took to playing the guitar at age 10 and has never managed to learn how to do it correctly. But, as it turns out, this may have turned out to be a pretty good thing. Without necessarily having set out to do so, Killian has succeeded (according to critical praise for his debut CD, "Flux Aeterna") in finding his own unique "voice" on an instrument that is nearly ubiquitous in modern popular music. His sound is a peculiar amalgam of odd, sometimes familiar, influences: folk, pop, blues, rock, metal, jazz, electronica, electro-acoustic "art music," and just plain noise ("!") that begs one to think the word "fusion" but is much more primal, gut-level and organic than any connotation that word may conjure. Killian's music is full of contradictions. It is primitive and sophisticated, visceral and sensitive, abstract and accessible, complex and blood simple all at once. It is given birth by heavy doses of technology (MIDI guitar, a plethora of electronic effects, digital echo devices, samplers, and all manner of assorted "gadgets") but the result is amazingly human sounding. There is blood and sweat mixed in with all of the diodes and cables -- and more than a small measure of passion. This intensity is not something that can be seen in the usual form of typical guitarist "histrionics" but can be heard in every note of the music itself. Killian began playing and experimenting early on, but (in terms of public performance) bloomed late. Beginning in the late 1980s, he began performing his original music in conjunction with the Ventura, California New Music Concert Series -- aided by close friend and colleague, avant-jazz trumpeter, Jeff Kaiser. So began a long series of ever-changing concerts and presentations all around Southern California. Some of these were in connection to SEAMUS, an acronym for the national "new music" organization: the Society for Electro Acoustic Music in the United States (Killian was introduced to the organization by Kaiser in 1990 and became President of the Los Angeles chapter in 1992). Ted's has been interviewed as a featured composer on "Music of the Americas" on KPFK radio in Los Angeles. Since the debut of "Flux Aeterna" his music has been played on literally dozens of radio stations around the globe and has garnered critical praise in as many publications internationally. In recent years, he has composed music for ballet, "fixed" gallery installations, multi-discipinary art performances, large ensembles and small groups. And, after all of this, Killian has still somehow managed to avoid having ever been in anything resembling a "band." Ted Killian is a 1982 graduate of UCSB with a Bachelors degree in visual arts. Since then he has exhibited paintings, sculpture and computer art in a number of galleries, museums and other venues across the country. He was a 1992 appointee to the "Task Force for Visual Arts" in Ventura, CA. He supports his musical/artistic activities with his "day job" as a freelance graphic designer for various musical instrument and high-tech manufacturers. He currently resides in Southern Oregon with his wife, 3 sons, 3 guinea pigs, and 2 goldfish. Ted Killian's debut CD, "Flux Aeterna" is available on Jeff Kaiser's pfMentum label: www.pfmentum.com

Group Members Ted Killian on Electric and acoustic guitars, loops and processors.

Instruments Electric Guitar, Sampler, Synths

Albums Available on pfMENTUM records

Press Reviews Josef Woodard, Santa Barbara Independent "Ted Killian is a nice enough fellow. Family man, mild-mannered, well-versed in the manipulation of ones and zeroes, PDFs and digital delay loops. Those who-knew-him-when as a local, and the graphic design point man at the Seymour Duncan compound in Goleta, knew him as a kindly sort who was missed when he packed up the clan and moved to the friendlier real estate climes of Oregon a few years ago. And then there is his alter artistic ego, also kindly, but also restless and wild. Killian is an electric guitar adventurer who may finally get some of the attention he deserves, having finally released his debut CD, Flux Aeterna, on the pfMENTUM label, run by his old friend and comrade, Santa Barbaran new-jazz maestro, Jeff Kaiser (www.pfmentum.com). A beautiful, raucous, and ethereal maze of sounds both physical and digital, and mostly conjured with guitars, Killian obviously ignored the advice of anyone who might have suggested "don't try this at home". What has come out of his garage, and his brain, is a mutant DIY jewel. Experimental, yes. Accessible, too, in the way that mad guitar playing in the post-Hendrix era has embedded itself in the collective ear. Some may have caught Killian's very occasional live appearances, in Santa Barbara and Ventura, in which he appeared entangled in wires and chains of effects. To set up kinetic musical canvas situations, Killian would deploy looping devices, including the mythical antique, the Electro-Harmonix 16-second digital delay unit, and sound-altering devices such as a ring modulator and mondo-distortion pressed into the service of grace. As heard on the opening track, "Hubble" Killian doesn't spare the piercing solo guitar statements, the epic rock gesture that sounds loud no matter what volume you've dialed up. But often, those sweeping lines are laid atop surprisingly delicate, layered backdrops, as on "Cauterant Baptism" or the languid distorto-toned musing drifting over "Recurvate Plaint." "Leaving Medford" is an Oregonian-specific play on the song "Leaving Memphis," but the vibe here is industrial and a touch foreboding, and a splinkety energy bubbles beneath the textural demolition derby that is "Reverse Logic." But tenderness and subtlety hover about the proceedings, too. "Nocturnal Interstices" is an ambient collage of soaring tones and happily elusive structure. "Convocation Solitaire" is a sweet dream of a loop-happy tone poem, somewhat reminiscent of Bill Frisell's first album. The title cut closes the album with its underwater-sounding arpeggios and unruly rock phrases, all dressed up in feedback and tattered timbral garb. The nice guy, the artist, the looper, and the rock riffster walk into a bar . . . and a church. For anyone wondering about the painterly expressive potential of the electric guitar, this is one prime example. One hears influential strains of artful gadget-tweakers David Torn and Robert Fripp here, but Killian is also onto something that is uniquely his own. This is the work of an open-minded, dogma-resistant experimentalist in a rock guitarphile's body. Radio Stations Playing "Flux Aeterna" WNCW 88.7 FM Spindale, NC WSIA 88.9 FM Staten Island, NY CKUT 90.3 FM Montreal, Quebec WSUM 91.7 FM Madison, WI CFLX 95.5 FM Sherbrooke, Québec KUCI.88.9 FM Irvine, CA KAPSAI FM 100.2 Lithuania WOMR 92.1 FM Provincetown, MA KDSU 91.9 FM Fargo, ND FRK 105.8 FM Kassel, Germany CJAM 91.5 FM Windsor, Ontario KCSB 91.9 FM Santa Barbara, CA 3D Radio 93.7FM Adelaide, Australia CIUT 89.5 FM Toronto, Ontario KCBS 91.9 FM Santa Barbara, CA WXYC 89.3 FM Chapel Hill, NC KLCC 89.7 FM Eugene, OR WORT-FM 89.9 Madison, WI RCV 99 FM Lille, France KZSU 90.1 FM Stanford, CA KDVS 90.3 FM Davis, CA RTR 92.1 FM Perth, Western Australia 90.1 FM Sens, France

Additional Info http://www.pfmentum.com/flux.html

Location Medford, Oregon - USA

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