P R O V I D E N C E

Experimental Prog Rock Rock Sound Art

P R O V I D E N C E

About

Winnipeg progressive rock trio PROVIDENCE has been hiding in the shadows of the Winnipeg music scene for years. Everything about this band is unconventional.  

"We always wanted to release an album.  We made attempts years ago, using what was then almost state-of-the-art four-track cassette recorders. I recall we used a Tascam Porta Two multi-track machine.  Our ideas were likely too ambitious at the time, because the recorder could not handle all the overdubs we wanted to do.  We still have all those old demos in vault at Studio Irrenhaus.  Fast forward a millenia to the age of digital recording...

We pooled our resources and picked up a new iMac, a Mackie 1640 mixing board with FireWire, and some other goodies and started recording.  The first track we recorded with the new gear at Studio Irrenhaus was a song we covered called "Metal", by Gary Numan.  We knew the song well, being fans and all, and we used the piece to test drive the capabilities of our new recording gear.  The first track we recorded for the Demon Haunted World project was Temporal Stasis, and the drums were tracked in May of 2008.

We are a famously lazy and "invisible" band, since we do not gig much at all.  When we do, it is quite a spectacle.  We performed at the Masonic Temple in Winnipeg (located at 420 Corydon - not a coincidence lol) some years back.  It was a cool venue with these domes inside the main hall that reminded me of Mos Eisley space port.  We had a stage built, a big lighting rig, and amazing sound production (courtesy of our long-time friend and a former band mate, Terry Ross and his TNT Productions).  Everything was there for a big concert.  Video projections, lasers, and the obligatory fog machines.  The fog machine had a on/off pedal that Bob operated whilst playing on stage.  He did not realize the switch was a tap on/ tap off device.  The resulting miasma of fog in the room was legendary and for the first 15 minutes of the show, we truly were an invisible band.  

Studio time was slow and steady with a good supply of beer, chips, cheese, and chatter.  Being science and science fiction fans, we had many discussions concerning the LHC Higgs Bosun discovery, and naturally Star Trek, Alien, Star Wars, and such.  The best part of owning the recording/rehearsal space is that you can take your time with everything.  It also served as our socializing zone, especially since we prefer to keep each other's company rather than go out and socialize.  We were social distancers before it became mandated.  We were three introverts sequestered with a bunch of awesome gear in our little bunker.  

At some point during recording we began to recognize something of a concept forming with the music and lyrics we had been working on.  We segued each track with its own audio intro that served to further set the scene for the following tune.  It seemed to solidify the whole package rather nicely.  Think of Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Carl Sagan often became a topic of discussion in the studio, and his book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle In The Dark became starkly relevant, especially with the scourge of "fake news", "alternative facts", pseudoscience, new age nonsense, toxic religious dogma, and an observation that genuine critical thinking had been declining severely for decades.  One quote from his book stood out for us, "...clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness"

The album tells tales from this Demon Haunted World.  The rise of our species as intelligent and imaginitive creatures that develop science, technology, music, and art, in parallell with pseudoscience, superstition, and religious dogma.  The danger when such technology merges with  these non critical thought processes is apparent.

In this age of immediate gratification and short attention spans, we hope that you will find time to listen to the entire album in sequence, as it was meant to be heard.

we hope you enjoy it as much as we did creating it."

Best,

Ben

Bob

Basil    

 

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Ascent Of Man by P R O V I D E N C E

P R O V I D E N C E - Ascent Of Man by P R O V I D E N C E

P R O V I D E N C E - Best Laid Plans Of Mice / Bobblehead Jesus by P R O V I D E N C E

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Syncrete/ Temporal Stasis by P R O V I D E N C E

P R O V I D E N C E - Mutual Assured Destruction/ Nuclear York by P R O V I D E N C E

P R O V I D E N C E - The Demon Haunted World by P R O V I D E N C E

P R O V I D E N C E - The Wheel/ Zeta by P R O V I D E N C E

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