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Kush Arorawww.kusharora.com |
The title of Kush’s first full length album, released as a cassette in 1996 under the name Involution was titled ‘Too pissed to masturbate’. He has come a long way since those days, and we are very proud of him. At age 15 Kush was pleased to find out a UC Berkeley Psychoacoustics graduate student named Chris Stecker had heard ‘too pissed to masturbate’, loved it and wanted to release a new album by Involution. Chris had a label called Ovenguard records that also put on shows called Omnimedia. This is where Kush met artists like Wobbly, Big City Orchestra, Negativeland, and Blevin Blectum. At this time Kush and Robbie played several shows together and their relationship led to the release of ‘Chaka’, the final Involution CD (now out of print) on Record Label Records. Around this time, curiously Cevin Key released an electronic album under a pseudonym ‘Involution’ which contained a track titled ‘clairaudience’. Either this was a major coincidence or something fishy was going on. Ironically, in Kush’s youth Cevin Key and Doubting Thomas had a huge influence on his sound, later leading him to investigate Cevin’s musical influences of Dancehall and dub music. No law suit or anything ensued, just a simple agreement that they could still both use the name Involution. After a slew of noise experimental and ambient releases as Involution, and probably having something to do with Key’s decision to name his own project Involution, Kush went solo and changed the title of his project to Clairaudience.
Following the name change he released a cd with the great title ‘It’s my Jihad you cracker faggot’ on a Spanish noise label, Tabula Rasa . in the same series as other noise artists such as Anal Cunt member Richard Ramirez and con-dom. Taking a short break music making Kush returned in 2004 with ‘Underwater Jihad’ a drastic departure from his previous works. Under Water Jihad is an instrumental bhangra/industrial/dub/dancehall hybrid with sound design borrowing from his earlier experimental works. Kush followed up on this release with Bhang Ragga and Brooklyn to SF, two self released cds featuring a large lineup of guest vocalists.
Most recently Kush has been using elements of dubstep in his work, which can be heard on the Record Label Records release . ‘Dub Elements: Ocean’ a limited edition of 300 red/black marbled vinyl that reflects the more experimental and end of the dubstep tip.
Releases:
as Involution – Lab Love (Cd, Album) Ovenguard Records -1997
as Involution – Chaka (Cd, Album) Record Label Records -1998
as Clairaudience ( Cd, Album) -2001
Underwater Jihad (CD, Album) Record Label Records -2004
Bhang Ragga (CD, Album) KAAP -2006
Dub Elements: Ocean (12", Ltd, Ble) Record Label Records -2007
Brooklyn to SF (CD, Album) KAAP -2007