Bill Gilonis (born 1958) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

guitarist and composer. He co-founded the gritty

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

group The Work in 1980 with

Tim Hodgkinson Timothy "Tim" George Hodgkinson (born 1 May 1949) is an English experimental music composer and performer, principally on reeds, lap steel guitar, and keyboards. He first became known as one of the core members of the British avant-rock group ...

. The group was active intermittently until 1993, recording four albums and touring extensively, including in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

and

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. Gilonis has also worked as a producer, sound engineer and/or musician with (among others):

Robert Wyatt Robert Wyatt (born Robert Wyatt-Ellidge, 28 January 1945) is a retired English musician. A founding member of the influential Canterbury scene bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, he was initially a kit drummer and singer before becoming para ...

News from Babel News from Babel were an English avant-rock group founded in 1983 by Chris Cutler, Lindsay Cooper, Zeena Parkins and Dagmar Krause. They made two studio albums with several guest musicians (including Robert Wyatt) and disbanded in 1986. His ...

(

Chris Cutler Chris Cutler (born 4 January 1947) is an English percussionist, composer, lyricist and music theorist. Best known for his work with English avant-rock group Henry Cow, Cutler was also a member and drummer of other bands, including Art Bears, Ne ...

Lindsay Cooper Lindsay Cooper (3 March 1951 – 18 September 2013) was an English bassoon and oboe player and composer. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the ...

Zeena Parkins Zeena Parkins (born 1956) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist active in experimental, free improvised, contemporary classical, and avant-jazz music; she is known for having "reinvented the harp". Parkins performs on standard harp ...

Dagmar Krause Dagmar Krause (born 4 June 1950) is a German singer, best known for her work with avant-rock groups including Slapp Happy, Henry Cow, and Art Bears. She is also noted for her coverage of songs by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler. Her ...

), David Thomas,

Peter Blegvad Peter Blegvad (born August 14, 1951) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, writer, and cartoonist. He was a founding member of German/English avant-pop band Slapp Happy, which later merged briefly with Henry Cow, and has released many sol ...

, Ut, Lindsay Cooper Film Music Group,

Hail Hail is a form of solid precipitation. It is distinct from ice pellets (American English "sleet"), though the two are often confused. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is called a hailstone. Ice pellets generally fal ...

and The Hat Shoes (with

Catherine Jauniaux Catherine Jauniaux is a Belgian avant-garde singer. She has been described as a "one-woman-orchestra", a "human sampler", and "one of the best kept secrets in the world of improvised music". Her solo album, ''Fluvial'' (1983) is regarded as one ...

Tom Cora Thomas Henry Corra (September 14, 1953 – April 9, 1998), better known as Tom Cora, was an American cellist and composer, best known for his improvisational performances in the field of experimental jazz and rock. He recorded with John Zorn, B ...

, Charles Hayward, and others). Other projects include: writing and recording the music for Frida Béraud's one-woman theatre piece, "Aus den Haaren gezogen"; a collaboration with Anja Burse on Wild Thing, an audio-visual installation piece; and a multi-media piece for the Val de Travers exhibition about Absinthe in Neuchatel, Switzerland (with

Luigi Archetti is a fictional character featured in video games and related media released by Nintendo. Created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Luigi is portrayed as the younger fraternal twin brother and sidekick of Mario, Nintendo's masc ...

, Jeroen Visser and Julien Baillod). He has been living in

Zürich Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...

since 1993 where he has mixed and/or produced CDs by Swiss bands such as No Secrets in the Family, The Jellyfish Kiss and Lödig. His most recent recordings have been ''Zürich-Bamberg'' (Ad Hoc, 2008), a CD of electroacoustic compositions (together with Canadian composer Chantale Laplante); ''Calvary Greetings'' by the Anglo-Dutch-American band Stepmother (with

Lukas Simonis Lukas Simonis is a Dutch guitarist, mainly active in experimental music and sound art. Besides his career as a musician he's also involved with the Rotterdam-based avant garde venue WORM. and runs the music lab of the venue. Simonis published a ...

, Jeroen Visser and

Dave Kerman David Kerman (born August 24, 1959), better known as Dave Kerman, is an American experimental rock drummer and composer, best known as the founder and member of the Los Angeles avant-rock group 5uu's. He is also a member of the Belgian progressi ...

) - "a reunion of an 80s band that never existed but should have"; and ''Paragraphs and Principles'' by Officer! and around 30 guests. In 2009, together with Alex Julyan, he published ''Lost in Translation'', on Lost & Found Publishing. He currently plays with the six-piece brass and woodwind ensemble Blasnost, which is based in Zurich, and the GONG Improvisation Orchestra under the direction of Ruedi Debrunner.

Selected discography

Albums

; The Work *''

Slow Crimes ''Slow Crimes'' is a 1982 studio album by English post-punk rock group the Work. It is their debut album and was recorded between September 1981 – January 1982 in London, Switzerland and Belgium. It was released on LP in April 1982 by Woof ...

'' (1982, LP, Woof Records, UK) *'' Live in Japan'' (1982, LP,

Recommended Records Recommended Records (RēR) is a British independent record label and distribution network founded by Chris Cutler with Nick Hobbs in March 1978. RēR features largely "Rock in Opposition" and related music, but it also distributes selected mus ...

, Japan) *''Rubber Cage'' (1989, LP/CD, Woof Records, UK) *''See'' (1992, CD, Woof Records, UK) *''The 4th World'' (2010, CD, Ad Hoc Records, USA) ;

, Bill Gilonis,

and

*'' The Last Nightingale'' (1984, LP,

, UK) ;

*'' Letters Home'' (1985, LP/CD, Recommended Records, UK) ;The Hat Shoes *''Differently Desperate'' (1992, LP/CD, RecRec, Switzerland) *''Home'' (2002, CD, RecRec, Switzerland) ;Bill Gilonis & Chantale Laplante *''Zürich-Bamberg'' (2008, CD, Ad Hoc Records, USA) ;Stepmother, (

, Bill Gilonis, Jeroen Visser and

) *''Calvary Greetings'' (2014/2015), CD/LP, Megaphone / Knock'em Dead Records, USA) ;Officer!, (Mick Hobbs, Felix Fiedorowicz, Bill Gilonis and 30 guests) *''Paragraphs and Principles'' (2021/2022), CD/LP, Klanggalerie, Austria / Jelodanti Records, France) ;Compilation (The Lowest Note + The Work + Bill Gilonis/

) *''WOOF 7 inches'' (2004, CD, Ad Hoc Records, USA)

References

External links

Official WebsiteThe Work's MySpace space
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gilonis, Bill English rock guitarists 1958 births Living people