International Metal Supply (Jean-Pierre
Bedoyan & Paul B. Cutler) lies in-between different musical traditions and
backgrounds, at the threshold that unites and separates musical improvisation and
sculpture,the Los Angeles underground scene and European avant-garde. Inter-national
because the group aims to be both global and specific, drawing its strength from
the exploration of a music both imaginary and traditional, very old and not yet born.
Cutler
and Bedoyan reclaim the current supply of metal offered by our post-industrial age:
discards found in the junkyards of Los Angeles; and, through collage, welding and
random imagination, create original instruments. Against the grain of mass-produced
entertainment, they control every aspect of their production from improvisational
composition to design and manufacturing. Their collaboration is playful, entertaining,
generously ironical.
For IMS, the metal is the medium; an experimentation with new sounds, rhythms and structures. The metal is the music: IMS avoids any form of sound processing or technological hoopla and the use of contact microphones is the only concession to electronics.