Blues Control sounds like the intersection of a dusty basement noise show and a forgotten new age meditation retreat. Their music is built on the chemistry between Lea Cho’s melodic, often classically-informed keyboard lines and Russ Waterhouse’s gritty, textural guitar and tape manipulations. It is a sound that feels both ancient and futuristic, utilizing the limitations of analog gear to create expansive, psychedelic landscapes that never quite settle into a single genre.
What makes them truly distinctive is their ability to find beauty in the 'wrong' sounds. They embrace tape hiss, cheap keyboard presets, and jagged guitar feedback, weaving them into compositions that possess a surprising amount of emotional weight. While many of their peers in the mid-2000s noise scene focused on pure abrasion, Blues Control maintained a commitment to rhythm and melody, resulting in music that is as much about 'groove' as it is about experimentation.
Start with 'Local Flavor' to hear their most realized vision of psych-rock deconstruction, or dive into 'FRKWYS Vol. 8' for their legendary collaboration with new age pioneer Laraaji. It is the perfect entry point for anyone who loves the idea of psychedelic music but wants something that feels more tactile, gritty, and grounded in the physical reality of magnetic tape and vibrating strings.
Blues Control was an American experimental music duo from Queens, New York City. Blues Control's members were Russ Waterhouse (guitar, electronics) and Lea Cho (keyboards). The group released music on a variety of formats, including vinyl, cassette, and CD-R. In 2012, their release Valley Tangents reached #5 on the Billboard Top New Age Albums chart. In 2019, the group announced they were on an indefinite extended hiatus.
Cassette uses generative AI to enrich its catalog. How we use AI →