Selected Reviews for BlipVert:


Gothtronic Webzine (stop:skronk:explode!):

Originally blipverts were a kind of new high-speed, high-intensity television commercial which caused the nerve systems of certain viewers to overload. Now, this is really the effect that struck me when listening to the album 'Stop:Skronk:Explode!' by this American madman called Blipvert. In earlier days, when I listened to the songs of Kid 606, they beat me to a jelly. Cutting 50 songs into pieces and rebuilding them into a song of four minutes drove me already up the curtains. Blipvert takes it even one step further. He manages to throw overboard every single form of song structure and creates 'something' with a combination of noise, breakcore and ambient soundscapes. It sounds to me like there is a kind of intergalactical top 40 from another Milky Way System that is rumbling to us at a speed of a thousand miles per hour. This goes way too far for me! It might just be unique, but I'm never through with this Blipvert CD. This is, in a matter of speaking, the most raw electronic record I have ever heard. After this electronic deathride you will be almost near death and in need for quick respiration.


ZXZW Holland:

Have a blast with a loud sound collage of blips, hardcore beats, heavy noises and hi-pitched 8bit extremes, all taking turns in a breakcore kind of rhythmical fashion.. something fast and uncontrollably wild...BlipVert!


Stuntd Growth (stop:skronk:explode!):

Stop:Skronk:Explode! is one hell of a listen - certainly not for the faint of heart. This stuff is some of the most spastic, unpredictable, insane IDM I've ever heard. One moment you'll be chilling to some nice ambience, the next you're thrown in a blender with about 2500 different electronic noises from around 10 different styles and if you don't escape it, you'll most certainly be liquidated (I assure you that's a good thing in this case).
- JC Denton


Ear-Rational Music:

Somewhere in the space between Kid 606 and Merzbow is Blipvert. I dig this, it is hyper aggressive techno that barrels along full speed into noise territory. Plenty of beats and identifiable elements keep it in the music realm still. I once saw Otto Von Shirach live, and it was fun, much better than the studio albums. Blipvert brings that incredible live energy to the studio, and to this recording. Looking to drive your car off the bridge? This can be the soundtrack as you hurtle through the metal guard rails - but is that the sound of crunching metal on metal or the sound of the stereo at full tilt? There are mixed up beats changing frequently, processed vocals, biting melodies. This is closer to hardcore techno than Skinny Puppy. 
Laptop musicians rise and rejoice the power.
-Don Poe


smother.net - skr(ep):

Oakland’s electronic artist Blipvert once again delivers the goods. Crafty electronica that’s propped up with glitchy breaks and laptop noise, “skr(ep)” is surprisingly dense for only being twenty-five minutes long or so. Chaotic atmospheres with disenchanting noise and gritty samples will leave you feeling desolate, alone, and almost gives a sense of panic.
 -J-Sin


Vital Weekly/EARLabs:

Behind the name BlipVert is one Will Redmond, who has been playing music for fifteen years now, playing rock and metal bands, but turned towards electronic and experimental music later on. Currently he's in Oakland. California, and plays with all sorts of people from the Bay area and with various bands, but BlipVert is his solo project. Here he sees himself as being influenced by say Aphex Twin, Skinny Puppy, Squarepusher and Kid 606. This all can be noticed in the highly fucked up music that he produces. Built around short loops, which he fanatically plays in a highly disjointed manner. Breakcore is never far away, but it's not an exclusive domain for him, even when he genuinely plays a fucked up tune. In 'Gettem Irvan' the beat is rather continuous, but the best pieces are the closing 'Cohesion Of Solid Souls' with it's improvised cello playing and the opening 'Candycane Man' which is almost like a real popsong, including robotized vocals. To different ends of the music coin, but with the three tracks in the middle, BlipVert shows you can get away with it.
- Jos Smolders


WCNI 90.9 Connecticut:

For a pleasant suprise we have "Triple Acid Foot" from BlipVert. This takes a little effort to listen to but is worth it. Digital Noise-iness, multi layers, and computer goodness abound. It sounds oh so familiar but yet distant. If you are into Kid 606 and Skinny Puppy, try it! Winslow just informed me that Blipvert is a reference to Max Headroom (remember the 80's). Blipvert has something to do with receiving too much information at once (which can cause one's head to explode). Now it all makes sense!


smother.net:

Probably not a release for the tender of heart or the weak of ear, “Triple Acid Foot” is part glitch-core, part noise, and yet even has this dorm/indie rock thing going on too. Will Redmond’s Blipvert project will no doubt turn many heads for its genius and raw intensity if not for his overt sense of structureless mayhem. One could compare this to Otto Van Schirach without a blink but never could you call this clever masterpiece derivative. If you like your blips and bleeps with a big helping of balls-to-the-wall pandemonium, than Blipvert is your sweetened ice tea.
-J-Sin
(Editor's Pick/Top Ten)


NYC Downtown Music Gallery:

BlipVert is another name for Will Redmond, formerly a guitarist for Ron Anderson's great band PAK. BlipVert claims he is here to split our heads open and that he does! Twisted, noisy, warped drum machine and strange samples squished through the sonic blender. Fast paced electronic eruptions tightly wound and ever-changing. Will sets his sequencers on stun as they constantly shift and bend the beats, rarely giving us any time to rest. Bits of melodies and odd voices are often spinning in the mix, adding a recognizable theme or thread. This sounds like it was done on an old tape recorder, splicing tape, going backwards and forwards at different speeds, the way Zappa used to do it in the mid-to-late sixties. BlipVert does a fine job of turning sounds inside-out, stretching those electronic sounds into all types of strange shapes, blowing minds and providing a glimpse of things to come, when computers take over and spoon feed us all electrical energy direct.
-Bruce Lee Gallanter
(Best of 2004)


artificeternity.com/voltage:

...Blipvert's noisier set included experiments with echoed vocal sounds and optical controllers, and fantastic, spastic dancing. The jaw-dropping highlight of the evening was the sudden appearance of fiery, freeform alto saxophonist John Savage, who burst from the shadows with horn wailing in the middle of an intense Blipvert number....



Selected Reviews for Mambo Mantis:


allaboutjazz.com - Everybody Knows Something:

Do not let the word “mambo” in this band’s name fool you. There is nothing of the famed Cuban genre on this album, recorded live at the Bowery Poetry Club and ABC No Rio. The group's sound is experimental as it gets—with surprising neurotic sounds and hard rock influences—as heard on the introduction to “According to Type” and “Minute Openings.”

On the opening track, “Royal Mambo,” reedman Blaise Siwula brings a frontal attack that sounds as if a swarm of bees are in chase; meanwhile saxophonist Bonnie Kaye plays a soft melody that seems completely out of place, but somehow soothes in the process. “Crisp Tornado” opens with a drum solo by Ray Sage, and halfway through, sounds come in far away from the mics, giving the impression of an impending storm. But then it subsides, leading the way to “Biocurrents,” an abstract mix of electronic sounds, distorted saxophones and strangely incoherent drumming.

On the final track, a lengthy straight jazz drum solo gives way to a cacophony of woodwind sounds. For some moments, guitarist Will Redmond plays against the general feel as if he were in some kind of daze—or at least trying to confuse the listener.

Everybody Knows Something is not for everyone, but the album is recommended for those patient enough to understand from where the musicians are coming and what they expect you to [mis]understand in the process.
-Ernest Barteldes


allaboutjazz.com - Ecstasy of Perfect Recognition:

 From the potent opening cut of The Ecstasy of Perfect Recognition, it's clear that Mambo Mantis stands outside of any conventional definition. “Life On Mars,” with its blistering, pardon, extreme guitar by Will Redmond blazing above drummer Ray Sage’s thrashing, brings to mind the intense duet of John Coltrane and Rashied Ali on Interstellar Space (which actually featured a cut entitled “Mars”).

The songs collected here are short, quick, effective punches to the gut. “Sox 1” is a sax wail-fest, with Bonnie Kane and Blaise Siwula coming out of each corner over Sage’s relentless hammering and Redmond’s foreboding bass line. “Mr. Science” continues the trend of passionate howling, then settles into something resembling a linear form, almost ballad-like. “Rock” is the disc’s epic, with forays into metallic rock ‘n’ roll, as the title suggests, and the kind of sax blowing one might find in a free jazz conclave.

Kane has the spotlight on “Sox 2.” Electronic effects shadow her as she builds the opening statement, then the rest of the band jumps in for a mind-altering free-for-all. “Peppers and Onions” is another sax and drums throwdown, and “Bleed” is another mercurial, high-octane jazz/rock hybrid. “Death By Boondah” serves as the disc’s passionate closing statement, a bookend to “Life on Mars.”

The kind of musicality this disc offers won’t appeal to listeners who prefer their jazz neither shaken nor stirred. The adventurous music lover however, will be challenged and rewarded by what Mambo Mantis puts down. Just drop your preconceptions at the door and you’ll be fine.
-Terrell Holmes


Improvijazzation Nation - Ecstasy of Perfect Recognition:

If you've never heard music from the krew at W.O.O. (Whole Other Orbit) before, this is the chance of a lifetime to get onboard their jazzified, rawk-in TRAIN! Listeners who have been checkin' out "Sweet Caroline", or "Mushy Mambos for Mommas" all their lives may have some kind of coronary thrombosis, or other disastrous medical dilemma occur when they hear the opening bars on "Sox1", or "Mr. Science", but if they make it through the O.B.E. this music will induce in uninitiated listeners, they'll be fans for life. These players (Bonnie Kane, sax/flutes; Blaise Siwula, sax; Ray Sage, drums; & Will Redmond, Electric guitar) have been favorites of our ears on multiple albums, most notably with our improvising friend Ernesto Diaz-Infante, but on this outing they will ASTOUND you, no doubts! Pure tumult from the opening cut, you must scope this on headphones... to do otherwise would rob you of that ecstasy the title alludes to you. I can tell you that if you're looking for adventure in your music, this IS the place to start! It gets our MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED rating for listeners who aren't afraid to do battle with the obvious!