Emeralds
Emeralds are John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire. They started playing music together in 2005 in the suburbs of Cleveland. After a year playing under another name, they decided to focus more on live improvisation and adopted the new band name Emeralds. Their most successful album to date, "Does It Look Like I'm Here?" was released last year on respected European imprint Editions Mego (home to acts like COH and Marcus Schmickler, who will appear at Unsound Festival New York the following day). "Does It Look Like I’m Here?" is the band’s third official album following "Solar Bridge" (Hanson), and their self-titled debut on their own Wagon and Gneiss Things imprint. They are an exceptionally prolific trio and have also released an uncountable number of small edition tapes and CDRs on a host of labels. Mark McGuire and Steve Hauschildt also perform and record under their own names, while John Elliott performs as Outer Space and records under the aliases Imaginary Softwoods, Colored Mushroom and the Medicine Rocks. The trio has opened for acts like Caribou, Throbbing Gristle, Goblin and many others.
"Does It Look Like I’m Here?" took the trios experimental brand of kosmische music into a radical new direction - moving their sound away from longer jams towards shorter material with an almost (for them at least) "pop" like focus. It also saw the group moving from playing single oscillator analog synthesizers to an analog/digital hybrid set-up that also includes a great deal of guitar synthesizer. Having spent all their lives in the relative isolation of Cleveland means their music has developed into a vital, stunningly unique sound all their own. However, their music clearly shows the influence of early synthesizer pioneers like Grosskopf and Howarth who they share a bill with. At Unsound Festival New York, Emeralds will perform two sets, one of their own material, and the second, closing out the evening, will be their first ever live collaboration with the legendary Alan Howarth.
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