BIG BLOCK 454

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ABOUT BIG BLOCK 454:

Since the early 80s, Big Block 454 has been making exploratory, highly individual music that encompasses rock, funk, electronica, folk music, Dadaist collage and much more besides. Colin Robinson has been the one constant member since the band’s inception, with Mark Joell and Alex Stone completing the current line-up. Each band member is a multi-instrumentalist, but Big Block 454’s approach also encompasses the creation of sound on instruments they don’t know how to play, and those that hadn’t been invented before the band made them.

Despite the band’s experimental approach, they fully intend their music to be accessible, catchy even. That’s why you’ll find on their new album – Bells and Proclamations – faux-folk songs, glam rock excursions and grand prog-rock motifs alongside ambient chill-out pieces and electro-funk workouts. But it’s the lyrical approach that helps define what Big Block 454 are all about – although the band claims that all the songs ‘mean something’, the lyrics can often be surreal, obscurely poetic or nonsensical at first listening.

“We love it when people tell us what our songs mean to them,” says Robinson. “Often the meaning they find in our music differs from our intention, but that’s fine.”

Two years in the making, the new album will be released primarily as a download, with an accompanying book of artwork, and the band is gradually making its complete back catalogue available for download from its Bandcamp page.

Find Big Block 454 at these links: Their music is available through Bandcamp: http://bigblock454.bandcamp.com/; Follow them on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/Big_Block_454 and Look at them on MySpace: www.myspace.com/bigblock454uk.

Big Block 454 was featured in the CITIES issue of Status Hat (March 2011)