Painted Cakes

Oakland, CA-based Painted Cakes started in 2005 as a solo electronica outlet for composer and multi-instrumentalist Elias Reitz. The group evolved into its current incarnation as a trio with the addition of percussionist Andrew Kitchen and bassist Shumit DasGupta in 2007. As a trio, Painted Cakes draws from their shared background, including elements of jazz, Indian classical music, African percussion, and progressive rock. Rather than aiming for lofty Read more on Last.fm …read full bio

Oakland, CA-based Painted Cakes started in 2005 as a solo electronica outlet for composer and multi-instrumentalist Elias Reitz. The group evolved into its current incarnation as a trio with the addition of percussionist Andrew Kitchen and bassist Shumit DasGupta in 2007. As a trio, Painted Cakes draws from their shared background, including elements of jazz, Indian classical music, African percussion, and progressive rock. Rather than aiming for lofty, overly-cerebral goals, Painted Cakes aims to bring up the floor — while the music borrows from these traditions, it is still first and foremost a rock band. There is clearly a nod towards the experimental while retaining the melodic sensibility of popular music. All three members met in Ann Arbor’s burgeoning music scene during the mid 1990’s. Andrew Kitchen was playing drums in the avant-jazz group Transmission, whose Ornette Coleman-meets-Primus sound had gained much notoriety in the Ann Arbor and Detroit areas as one of the most exciting, high-energy instrumental bands around. Transmission gigged extensively in the area, playing everywhere from the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival to Detroit's NYC's Knitting Factory location on Leonard St. Shumit DasGupta was playing bass in Poignant Plecostamus, an inventive weasel jazz-rock group known for its performances with poet Richard Tillinghast. Both groups were mainstays of the Ann Arbor house party circuit of the mid 1990's, eventually becoming each other's sister band and combining on occasion to perform as the Trans-Plecosto-Mission-Mus orchestra. The two bands combined forces to stage many memorable shows at rock and jazz clubs in the area, as well as numerous house parties and the Ann Arbor Edgefest. Elias worked as a sound engineer during this time and often worked with these groups and other related groups in both live and studio settings, and the three became good friends. Elias, Andrew and Shumit remained in touch as the Ann Arbor diaspora of creative musicians gradually spread out. Shumit went on to play in Bill Brovold's Larval and eventually moved to Chicago; Andrew moved out to San Francisco with the other members of Transmission, and Elias eventually settled in Oakland. Through extensive gigging in the Bay Area and occasional gigs in New York and Chicago, Transmission eventually became known as the Transmission Trio, and Elias recorded and engineered their LP recording "Tiny Beast" in his home in Oakland. During this time Elias was also playing percussion in Brightblack Morning Light and eventually founded Gojogo along with Transmission bassist Eric Perney. By the time Shumit landed in Oakland, the Transmission Trio was defunct and Gojogo was on hiatus, and Elias thought it would be fun for the three to perform some music he had created in his home studio. After a few well-received shows in San Francisco and Oakland, the group has been continuing to develop and record compositions by all three members while actively gigging in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as the Pacific Northwest. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

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…shrink me down again