PONOMAREV / OBRAZEENA MASSACRE

There have been bands called Massacre before, but this one is unlike any that preceded them. They are a duo: saxophonist Anton Ponomarev and
guitarist Anton Obrazeena. The second one is a leader of Moscow-based noise-rock band Jars while Ponomarev is a member of the punk-avant-jazz outfit Brom. He performed with Jars, and contributed saxophone to some of their recordings, and eventually the idea for a two-man project began to take shape. Their first performance as Massacre was on October 12, 2018.
Their debut album was released on Utech Records / US.

To book Ponomarev/Obrazeena MASSACRE please contact:
Joanna John / hello@kissthefrog.no

The album was recorded without much preconception. According to Ponomarev, we just discussed the feeling and emotions flowing for each of the tracks. What we did a lot was listen to each other and try to keep track of the musical canvas.
Obrazeena’s guitar was plugged into two guitar stacks and one bass stack, the better to achieve floor-shaking rumble. Ponomarev, who also plays electronics, sent his saxophone through two separate chains of electronics encompassing pedals, Moog processors, spring reverb, octavers, drone effects and more, so that it would travel independently through the left and right channels of the PA system. There was also a clear channel documenting just the saxophone, with no effects. The resulting music is an unearthly ever-shifting roar, sometimes identifiable as the product of guitar and saxophone but just as often not. Obrazeena’s guitar frequently starts out as an almost country-tinged drone, not unlike Dylan Carlson’s work on early 2000s Earth albums, before turning into a downtuned wall of distortion so thick you can almost scoop it up in your hands and rub it on your face. Ponomarev’s sax has a Mats Gustafsson-esque quality, screeching and bellowing like an enraged alligator, and his electronics create a dense Merzbow-ish pulse, with needle-sharp sine waves piercing the whooshing waves of static and reverberant atmospheres. The absence of rhythm allows them to concentrate on hearing and reacting to each other without worrying about time, creating an immersive world of pure sound that fills the room as easily as it empties out your skull.
Text by Phil Freeman

To book Ponomarev/Obrazeena MASSACRE please contact:
Joanna John / hello@kissthefrog.no

Mats Gustafsson, Nickelsdorf, Feb 18th, 2021:
The deep sub tremble of 2 creative minds! This shit is FOR REAL!
Image-rich walls of pure and raw energy gushing over us. Holding the instant NOW hostage. A super-intense and cleansing audio-bath of a new era! In an extremely great and creative mix, these two Russian masterminds take no prisoners! I LOVE this! Radical brutal poetry and in your-face outer space ROCK! This is an antidote of a massacre – this brilliant BEAST is of healing qualities.
This is a radical new apporoach and attack on all previous attempts of making Noise. Face melting beauty! Спасибо, Антон и Антон! Спасибо!!!