New self-titled debut album produced and recorded in NYC by Martin Bisi (The Dresden Dolls, Sonic Youth, Live Skull, Lydia Lunch, CopShootCop, Foetus, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, + more) NOW available for download through iTunes and on disc at http://cdbaby.com/cd/bfofopium.
The new album is available through Newbury Comics & Looney Tunes stores in the metro Boston area, Other Music in NYC, and other select stores throughout the country. Distribution through Carrot Top.
Press Qu...
New self-titled debut album produced and recorded in NYC by Martin Bisi (The Dresden Dolls, Sonic Youth, Live Skull, Lydia Lunch, CopShootCop, Foetus, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Bill Laswell, + more) NOW available for download through iTunes and on disc at http://cdbaby.com/cd/bfofopium.
The new album is available through Newbury Comics & Looney Tunes stores in the metro Boston area, Other Music in NYC, and other select stores throughout the country. Distribution through Carrot Top.
Press Quotes
Black Fortress of Opium are a brawling, dark monster of a band that seems like it should be playing shows with, say, Nicki Jaine or the Dresden Dolls rather than Gogol Bordello." – Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
"Treading a darker almost gothic path, probably through a Victorian cemetery at dusk, Black Fortress of Opium, are moody and magnificent on their self-titled album...a beautiful collection of brooding and melancholy songs that are varied enough to sustain interest throughout the album." - Simon Lewis and Steve Palmer, Terrascope
"Shows amazing promise and creative poise for such a new band. The album is a heady brew of melancholia, exotic instrumental flourishes, sinister glances and a sound that is as gothic as it is Appalachian and European." - Matthew Moyer, Ink 19
"Would suit a David Lynch bar scene" – Muruch
"Intensity and dark regality… dominant feelings of haunting, other-worldliness and mystique…Black Fortress of Opium truly makes you believe that you just may be listening to something highly monumental." – Northeast Performer Magazine
"BFO's music is filled with shimmering darkness, pierced by Ajda's often wraithlike vocals, and marked by dynamic tension." - Nick Zaino, Boston Globe
"This album's a great and daring thing." – collectedsounds.com
"The group plays hypnotic, often mesmerizing songs that unwind with a darkly slinky sensuality, sometimes exploding in rage. Think Elysian Fields, Bee & Flower or Botanica at their blackest and bleakest, with a more ambient sensibility. This is a sensationally good ipod album. And if the band only plays the cd's basic tracks onstage, they should be awesome live." – Lucid Culture NYC
"You needn't be a visitor to a drug den to be carried far, far away by this album's potent blend. BFO don't sound quite like anyone else, and their sense of dynamics and urgency makes them a truly interesting new band…coming through loud and clear on this amazing debut, and if its exotic stylings were any stronger, they might induce hallucinations...or at least permanent rejection of conformity" – Playback STL
"The music is simultaneously exotic and familiar yet it transports me to an older world." - Noise Magazine
"Ajda the Turkish Queen lures you with her voice, tells her deepest secrets, and generally draws you in to a gorgeous netherworld. But Black Fortress of Opium is also a flesh-and-blood band that teams her with some of Boston's more creative players; they can haunt with melody and rock with abstraction. This one is a pleasure to get lost in." - Brett Milano, Boston Phoenix music writer & author of The Sound of Our Town
Biography
In 2006, lyricist/multi-instrumentalist Ajda the Turkish Queen, originally from Houston, Texas met up with Boston, Massachusetts guitarist Tony Savarino. Inspired by the lore surrounding a little town in Turkey - Afyonkarahisar, which means 'Black Fortress of Opium' – they shortly thereafter formed the band Black Fortress of Opium together with Joe Turner (drums). Much lore surrounds the history of this place, Afyonkarahisar, where an ancient fortress is perched atop a hill.
Uniting Black Fortress of Opium's songs is the distinctive sound of female vocals, varying from powerful and soulful to soft and plaintive, combined with American folk instruments and a heady brew of electric guitars that float, swoop, and soar over fluid drumming.
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