''Before Ever After'' is the fourth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

Blind Idiot God Blind Idiot God is an American instrumental rock trio formed in 1982 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, by guitarist Andy Hawkins, bassist Gabriel Katz and drummer Ted Epstein. The phrase "blind idiot god" comes from horror writer H. P. Lo ...

, released by Indivisible Records on February 24, 2015. It marks the first album of new studio material by the band since ''

Cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Janu ...

'', released twenty-two years prior. Produced by guitarist

Andy Hawkins Melton Andrew Hawkins (born January 21, 1960) is an American former professional baseball pitcher and coach. Hawkins spent most of his Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the San Diego Padres, and also played for the New York Yankees and brie ...

with composer

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, w ...

, the album was first issued on double LP, then on CD and finally as a digital download. Laswell has described ''Before Ever After'' as the band's apex.

Background

When drummer Ted Epstein left the band in 1996, guitarist

and

Gabriel Katz Gabriel Paul Katz is an American bassist and founding member of the noise rock band Blind Idiot God. He performed with the band since its formation, recording three studio albums with them between 1987 and 1992. He also assisted bandmate Andy Haw ...

placed Blind Idiot God on indefinite hiatus while they searched for his replacement.

Tim Wyskida Tim Wyskida (born November 13, 1971) is an American drummer, most recognized for his work in the bands Khanate and Blind Idiot God. Biography Tim Wyskida began playing drums at the age of twelve, learning jazz technique and composition. In 2000, ...

, formerly of

Khanate A khaganate or khanate was a polity ruled by a khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. That political territory was typically found on the Eurasian Steppe and could be equivalent in status to tribal chiefdom, principality, kingdom or empire. Mong ...

, joined them on drums in 2001 and Blind Idiot God began recording new material, with more emphasis placed on improvisation. In 2006 the band returned to the stage and performed a series of shows around

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Gabriel Katz, who had previously delayed band activities after developing

tendinitis Tendinopathy, a type of tendon disorder that results in pain, swelling, and impaired function. The pain is typically worse with movement. It most commonly occurs around the shoulder (rotator cuff tendinitis, biceps tendinitis), elbow (tennis elb ...

and hearing problems, finally left the band and was replaced by Will Dahl in 2012. News of ''Before Ever Afters release was first announced through the band's

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

page on June 4, 2014. The album comprises music composed over a ten year period from when the band first reunited in 2001. In 2013, three tracks recorded for the album titled "Barrage", "Shutdown" and "High and Mighty" appeared in the HBO documentary ''

Downloaded In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote s ...

'', a film by

Alex Winter Alexander Ross Winter (born July 17, 1965) is a British-American actor and filmmaker. He played the slacker Bill in the 1989 film ''Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure'' and its sequels ''Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey'' (1991) and ''Bill & Ted Face t ...

examining the history of

Napster Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...

. A new piece titled "Voice of the Structure", a solo recording by Andy Hawkins, was released on August 6 on Azonic's Bandcamp website and is set to appear on the album. The artwork for ''Before Ever After'' was created by

Seldon Hunt Seldon Hunt (born 1969, in Melbourne and migrated to New York in 2006, (now residing in Brooklyn) is an artist best known for his photography and his graphic artwork (on album covers and promotional poster) for rock musicians. Hunt's photograph ...

, known for his work with

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

Neurosis Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...

, and

the Melvins ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

Track listing

Personnel

Adapted from the ''Before Ever After'' liner notes. Blind Idiot God *

–

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

7-string guitar The seven-string guitar adds one additional string to the more common six-string guitar, commonly used to extend the bass range (usually a low B) or also to extend the treble range. The additional string is added in one of two different ways: by ...

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, mixing *

– 5-string fretted bass, 5-string fretless bass *

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

Production and design *Jason Corsaro –

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

*James Dellatacoma – engineering, mixing *Alex DeTurk – mastering *Michael Fossenkemper – mastering *

–

illustrations An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, video ...

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

–

, mixing *Robert Musso – engineering

Release history

References

External links

''Before Ever After''
at

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...

* {{Authority control 2015 albums Blind Idiot God albums Albums produced by Andy Hawkins (musician) Albums produced by Bill Laswell