Militia (band)

Militia is a Belgian industrial percussion band. It was founded in 1989 by the multi-instrumentalist Frank Gorissen and wind instrument player Jo Billen and now 6 musicians are involved. The band is known for its use of self made percussion and wind INSTRUMENTS and the scrap material they transform into MusicAL instruments. The band's music is often inspired by the anarchic and atheist social views and their concirn AbOUT our NATURAL environment, themes that can be found in most of their lyrics and statements.

History

In 1989, Frank Gorissen was ACTIVE as a home recording electronic music artist and as an industrial music dj at the free radio station called "Radio Demervallei" in Diepenbeek, Belgium. As part of his show called "Radio Militia", he sometimes invited musicians to perform at the radio studio. During such an event he met the wind instrument player Jo Billen and together they founded the band Militia. Frank Gorissen recorded the early Militia music on tape, calling this project "Statement", playing a variety of percussion instruments mixed with the sounds of the wind instruments played by Jo Billen. They showed these tapes and talked about their plans of releasing their music to Mike Dando a.k.a Con-Dom, a British noise act, after they attended his performance in Antwerp. Mike Dando presented the band to the German music label Praxis Dr. Bearmann, after he had incorporated some of the Militia music for a few of his own releases. By that time Jo Billen had already left the band and formed his own music project "Onehouse". He was being replaced by Gary Vaes, Frank Van Hoof and Peter Vanderstukken, all three of them on percussion. The band now started composing powerful percussion music played upon layers of samples and electronic music. This style of composing music combined with their typical musical approach became the band's trade mark.

Tactical Recordings, the former Praxis Dr. Bearmann, released their following albums and made it possible for the band to record their music in a professional studio. Their first album New European Order - a 3 Lp set - was released in 1991 and became a major success; it was soon sold out. Several other CDs followed and the band can often be seen at major industrial music festivals throughout Europe such as Maschinenfest and Xphonozon in Germany, the Belgian Independent Music Festival and the French Deadly Actions festival, to name a few.

End of 2008, after Tactical Recordings stopped being active as a record label, the Swedish industrial and experimental music record label Cold Meat Industry took over and decided to release all future Militia records.

Band members

There were some changes in the band's line up over the past years and the musicians/personel involved now are:

• Frank Gorissen: compositions, electronic instruments, percussion, wind instruments, vocals
• Jeroen Henderix: percussion, electronics
• Sandra Janssen: percussion, trumpet
• Falk: percussion, didgeridoo
• Frank Vanhoof: machines, percussion
• Jochen Vanbrabant: percussion
• Tom Hox: manager, film projection

In April 2009 Jochen Vanbrabant left the band and continued his work as a sound engineer and power amplifier (PA) operator. He was being replaced by Yves Staeren who is also involved as a drummer in the band Nitebyte which is a side project of the Belgian band Zornik.

Music

The music of Militia can best be described as powerful rhythmic industrial and experimental music. Their sounds are generated from mostly self-made percussion instruments, using metal objects, scrap material, parts from machines, metal plates and tubes, empty gas containers, oil barrels, conventional drums, timpani and wind instruments and even a full metal radiator; with full equipment deployed, the stage has the appearance of a construction site. Frank Gorissen creates the backing sounds with a Korg poly 800/II synthesizer and devices such as digital delay and reverb machines. He uses samples created with the Roland SP 555 to upload the electronic music patterns and copies this music onto a basic sound tape. This tape is then used for creating the percussion and wind instrument patterns and layers, a job done by all Militia members. These patterns and layers are written down in a classical music notation combined with symbols of their own design.

After intensive rehearsing they go into a professional studio. The music is then being recorded on master CD and ready for production.

Militia was often compared to Test Department although there is a difference in style and musical approach between these two bands.

The band was invited to play at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, Belgium, where they performed the Nature Revealed concert, using self-made copies of prehistoric and Gallo-Roman music instruments. For this project, namely for the primitive instrument building and prehistoric language advice, they received the support and guidance of professor Ganzemans of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium.

Instruments

Electronic instruments: (not on stage)

• Korg Poly 800 Mark 2 synthesizer + sequencer
• Roland SP 555 sampler
• Boss RPD 10 digital delay
• Boss ROD 10 overdrive / distortion
• Teac EQA 22 graphic equalizer
• Yamaha SPX 900 multi effect processor

Home recording:

• Nakamichi cassette deck 1.5
• Sony MDS 303 minidisk recorder
• Duson PA 75 amplifier
• IQ Level 4 loudspeakers

Percussion instruments: (live on stage)

• 4 empty oil barrels
• 3 empty metal gas containers
• 1 full metal radiator
• 1 rack with 2 metal circular saw blades, tom, 2 metal plates
• 1 rack with two big metal tubes
• 1 rack with metal tube and metal plate
• 1 rack with gong-like metal plate
• 1 rack with self made metal tubular bell
• 1 self made percussion rack
• 1 set of 3 metal containers on rack
• 1 rack with large metal plate
• 2 bass drums (positioned horizontally)
• 1 floor tom
• 1 snare drum
• 3 cymbals

Wind instruments: (live on stage)

• 1 trumpet
• 2x didgeridoo
• 1 long metal tube (didgeridoo sound)
• 2 cow horns
• 1 Turkish wooden flute (zurna)

Tools: (live on stage)

• concrete mixer
• electric metal blade saw

Artwork

Militia shows a lot of attention to the visual outcome of their releases. Most of the time, graphic designers and visual artists are invited to design the covers of their releases:

New European Order and The Black Flag Hoisted: artworks by Christophe Janssen, a Belgian webdesigner and graphic designer

Everything is One: artwork by the Dutch photographer Lian Heuts

Nature Revealed: The music of "Nature Revealed" was recorded on two CD's, one disk containing the studio version and the other the recording of the live concert in Diepenbeek, and is packed in a wooden cover, handpainted by the Militia crew and decorated with feathers and black ink prints made by the German artist Tom Meyer. He also decorated the booklet that accompanies the two disks. The cover can be closed by means of a small rope and a handmade clay button.

Present situation

The band is a member of the Bilzen Cultural Board and receives annual financial support from the Bilzen community.

Militia side project MekanOrganiK

In collaboration with the Bilzen Cultural Board, Militia's side project MekanOrganiK organised the Bilzorganic festival, a street festival featuring several theatre acts and experimental music artists. MekanOrganiK presented a concert for 15 cement mixers and dance performance.

MekanOrganiK is also involved in the organisation of workshops, teaching young people how to create self-made music instruments and how to play the didgeridoo and percussion on empty oil barrels. In the youth club Club 9 in Koersel (Belgium), MekanOrganiK organised the workshop "percussion on oil barrels" during the Fair Trade happening and performed live the same evening, introducing "How to Extract Sunlight from Cucumbers" for a small but dedicated audience.

MekanOrganiK will release a full studio CD based upon the adventures of Liamel Gulliver (Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift ), called "How to Extract Sunlight from Cucumbers". Their music is sometimes slightly more techno or even experimental and sounds are being generated from sand, stones, cucumbers, water and so on, in combination with electronics and percussion. This first MekanOrganiK CD will be released by the Swedisch label Cold Meat Industry.

Social views

Militia also represents a platform for anarchic social views. The ideas and social points of view of anarchism are best shown in their album The Black Flag Hoisted and in their book Eco-Anarchic Manifesto in which they combine the anarchic social views with their concern about the state of nature and our ecosystem. In this book, which comes with a CD containing the registration of a Militia concert in Lille (France) during the Deadly Actions Festival, the musicians explain their views on modern society spread over nine chapters and based upon the ideas and points of view of anarchists like Bakunin, Proudhon and Kropotkin. Frank Gorissen, the author of this eco-anarchic guidebook, presents an assembly of ecological and anarchic elements to create an alternative social philosophy by designing a blueprint for an eco-anarchic society, describing the anarchic social structure, the eco-anarchic economy, anarchic culture, education and defence, proposing the atheistic-anarchic moral as an alternative for our contemporary society, combining all of these elements with the role and function of nature in the organic structure of the anarchic society. The book is illustrated with drawings of Militia's music instruments made by the Belgian artist and Yawar dancer Leen Ruyters. The book also contains pictures of the historic anarchists and is written in English. Book and Cd are released by the German record label Tactical Recordings and the American label Malignant Records.

The social views Militia stands for can be found in an interview with the Russian music magazine "ACHTUNG" (see below: External links: Interview with Militia, Achtung magazine):

(questions by Igor Vaganov, answers Frank Gorissen):

In connection with your past and present albums I've found links to legendary Russian anarcho-theoretics Bakunin and Kropotkin. Can I ask you about your interest to Russia and Russian revolution movements? What was the general idea/concept for the release? Why is it so actual for you to talk today about the past, about revolution - today, in a time of total de-humanisation, mechanical rhythm of daily life, inner destruction of human individuality in modern megapolises? Can we talk about it?

FG: I think you've allready made the right conclusions by reading about our works and listening to them. Indeed, we're using MILITIA as a tool for spreading our eco-anarchic ideas about our society. They will all be explained in our forthcoming manifesto. We founded MILITIA to be a tool for the spreading of our eco-environmental views and our social ideas, which are based upon the anarchic philosophies of the Russian anarchists Bakunin and Kropotkin and the French 'father' of anarchism Proudhon. We combined certain elements of their social views with our own ideas regarding environmental problems, so we designed an alternative social form in which people can live in harmony with their natural environment, based upon anarchic principles. This means that we distinguish ourselves from the conventional left wing ideas - which believe in a society lead by a government - and form a strong opposition against the appearance of right wing ideas that seem to infiltrate the industrial music scene more and more.

In 1998 Militia was invited by the French CLAPO festival in Amiens to perform at one of their first concerts, and the band received the invitation to play at the French television broadcast TF3. An interview with the band followed and the band was questioned about their anarchic social views and the program featuring Militia was broadcast that same evening on television.

Logo

The "cross and circle" logo comes from centre part of the cover picture of the first Militia album "New European Order", where it represents the middle screw for attaching a metal circular saw blade and has no other meaning what so ever. The saw blade is an object used as percussion instrument by the band and representative for the music. On the "Nature Revealed" Cd cover however, this object was accompanied by a symbolic meaning, representing the four elements in Nature: water, fire, earth and air, also the four themes this CD deals with. The circle connecting the four edges symbolises the unity between these four elements, also repeated in the album "Everything is One". That album draws the attention to the natural evolution of life, demanding respect for our environment and for all living beings. It is a statement which is a source of inspiration in most of the Militia works: the scientific, anarchic and atheist view on society and life, excluding and leaving behind all supra-natural beliefs like the belief in god(s), the occult, spirits and spirituality and so on. The "Black Flag Hoisted" CD box includes a black flag with in the centre of it that very same figure, a symbol for their anarchic social view. "The Black Flag Hoisted" album is dedicated to the anarchic philosophers and organisations worldwide and to the Animal Liberation Front for their struggle against animal abuse.

Major concerts

• Diepenbeek - Belgium 1989 first live performance at Radio Demervallei
• Tongeren - Belgium 1989 Vibrato in the Grotto #1 Festival
• Tongeren - Belgium 1990 Vibrato in the Grotto #2 Festival
• Heerlen - The Netherlands 1991 Oefenbunker
• Maastricht - The Netherlands 1992 Witte Ballons
• Diepenbeek - Belgium 1993 Theaterzaal
• Hasselt - Belgium 1993 XX Moda, music for a fashion performance at the Cultural Centre "BELGIE"
• Tongeren - Belgium 1994 Gallo-Roman Museum
• Lille - France 1995 Deadly Actions 3, combined performance featuring Frank Gorissen (Militia) and Mike Dando (Con-Dom)
• Ghent - Belgium 1996 Heavy Nursing Festival + poster +
• Amiens - France 1998 Clapo Festival + performance for TF3, French television
• Bree - Belgium 1998 solo performance by Frank Gorissen at the Sculpturale 98 art event (Artétude)
• Lille - France 2000 Deadly Actions Festival + pictures +
• Erlangen - Germany 2000 E-Werk
• London - England 2002 Hinoema Festival
• Leeds - England 2002 CultureBunker
• Maastricht - The Netherlands 2002 Klanktank Festival
• Sint-Niklaas - Belgium 2004 Independent Festival for Music and Arts + pictures +
• Antwerp - Belgium 2004 Belgian Independent Music Festival (BIM) + picture/poster +
• Alkmaar - The Netherlands 2004 Parkhof + pictures +
• Diepenbeek - Belgium 2005 Onderrock Festival
• Erlangen - Germany 2006 Xhponozon Festival + pictures +
• Krefeld - Germany 2006 Maschinenfest + pictures +
• Diest - Belgium 2007 Gothica Fest + pictures +
• Antwerp - Belgium 2008 Nuit et Brouillard "Deadly Actions" Festival + poster/review +
• Krefeld - Germany 2008 Maschinenfest festival + pictures +

Discography

Militia appears on:

• War Against Society (3xLP, Ltd, label: Praxis Dr. Bearmann)
• Ultrason (LP,label: (r)ecords)
• Total War Against State + Capital 2 (CD, label: Hidden Power Enterprises)
• 16th Independent Festival For Music & Arts (VHS, Ltd, label: EE Tapes)
• Belgian Independent Music Compilation 3 (CD, label: Dark Entries Magazine)
• Dark Demons 6 - 660 To Go (CDr, label: Dark Entries Magazine)
• Maschinenfest 2006 (2xCD, label: Pflichtkauf)
• Maschinenfest 2006 (2xCD, Ltd, Festival Edition, label: Pflichtkauf)
• Juche (CD + book, label: Tesco)

Militia provided sounds for:

• Con-Dom: Acts of Faith (on track 1 "Commando Terreur")
• Con-Dom: Law. The Seventh Sermon (7", Ltd, label: Power & Steel)
• Con-Dom: Perversion At All Costs (3xCD, label: Red Stream Inc)
• Con-Dom: Retribution. The Fourth Sermon (7", Ltd, label: Ant-Zen)
• Con-Dom: Retribution. The Fourth Sermon (7", Ltd, Spe., label: Ant-Zen)

MeKanOrganiK appears on:

Audioscoop #1 LP

External links

• The Birth of Experimental Music (article mentioning Militia)
• Interview with Militia - Stigmata magazine
• Interview with Militia - Achtung magazine
• Discogs presents the Militia releases - Militia records list
• Militia at the Deadly Actions Festival in Lille (France)(pictures)
• Militia live in Erlangen (Germany)
• Militia live at the Maschinenfest Festival (Germany) (search for Militia)
• Militia live in Hof ter Lo (Belgium)
• MekanOrganiK at Audioscoop #1 Maastricht (The Netherlands)
• Tactical Recordings on Discogs

Music and video / External Links

• Limbolink MekanOrganiK (Belgium)
• Limbolink Militia (Belgium)
• Militia live performance Deadly Actions Lille/France 2000
• Militia live performance Deadly Actions Antwerpen/Belgium 2008
• Militia live performance Maschinenfest Krefeld/Germany 2008

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