No doubt about it : Mark Deutrom is best known in his role as bassist for the band The Melvins, in which he played between 1993 and 1998, but that is by far the man's only accomplishment! Let's recapitulate his page in history, shall we?
Originally from London (England), Mark's military family relocated to El Paso, Texas, where he grew up. Interested in music, he studied composition at the California Institute Of The Arts in Valentia, CA, where some of the seminars he followed were done by none less than John Cage. Deutrom co-founded the San Francisco based Alchemy Records, and during his time there not only produced an album for his own band Clown Alley, but also for the bands Sacrilege, Melvins (Gluey Porch Treatment album), RKL, and Neurosis. At the same time, he also produced albums for Texas band Rhythm Pigs and Italians Raw Power, for other labels. Moving to London, he split from Alchemy in 1988. In 1989, he produced Melvins' Ozma album, and became sound engineer for the band on their 1992 European tour (which included a performance of the band at Redding Festival, at the request of headliners Nirvana). Deutrom also engineered sound for the band on a US tour with GWAR. In 1993, he was asked to take over bass playing duties in The Melvins, and continued to do so until 1998, contributing material to the studio albums Prick (Amphetamine Reptile Records, 1994), Stoner Witch (Atlantic Records, 1994), Stag (Atlantic, 1996), Honky (Amphetamine Reptile, 1997) and Alive At The F**ker Club (Amphetamine Reptile, 1998) as well as a variety of limited edition releases. During that time, The Melvins did tours with Nine Inch Nails, Helmet, L7, White Zombie, Tool, Kiss, Rush, and Nirvana (including playing on that band's very last gig in Munich, in 1994), and were featured on the bill of the traveling Lolapalooza festival. He left Melvins, so-called on account that of the fact that he was still living in London, wheras the rest of the band was based in California.
1998 saw Deutrom record his first solo album entitled The Silent Treatment (half ZZ Top-like Southern Blues 'n' Boogie, half Freak Beat Psychedelica), which was eventually released on Lunasound Recording in 2001 and followed up with a European tour (in the US, the album was licenced through Teepee Records, who also issued the single 5 Skull Blake). He then relocated to Austin, Texas, where he first co-produced the Pain By Numbers album (2004, Bloodshot Records) by Texas based Bluegrass band The Meat Purveyors. 2005 saw the man concentrate on two solo endeavours : Gate and Iraq. The first was a limited edition CD of a 3-movement musical piece, sourced from the recording of a rusty cattle gate, the second (self-released in 2006) was a single movement music piece sourced from loops of George W. Bush saying the word “Iraq”, the piece culminating in a repetition of the word at 236,850 times per second! 2006 then, saw Deutrom invited by SunnO))) to tour Europe with them, as well as numerous dates in the US (including a support slot for Celtic Frost).
After that, he continued his work as a producer (including albums for Texas based act Woodgrain in 2009 and 2011, mixed projects for Austin based bands Tia Carrera and Gorch Fock, and the 2012 album of Austin based The Well, among others), and also made some music of his own. Together with his wife Jennifer (who was co-writer and animator), he did the sound design and music for the animated shortie Get With The Program, which was screened at several festivals in 2011. Also during 2011 (Spring, actually), Deutrom released his second full-length solo album (in essence his 4th solo release) The Value Of Decay. In an ongoing Riffology series of animated shorts, Deutrom and his wife released Ruckus Juice in June 2012 (the soundtrack of which was also issued on 12-inch vinyl...of course without the animated clip). The clip was again screened at several film festivals that year.
Which brings us back to 2013, and Deutrom's currently new album...a very weird affair indeed! You see, overall there's a serenity of calmness about all 8 tracks (of which 5 are actually songs, with “Winter Haystacke At Twilight”, “Temple Smasher”, and “Venerate The Relic” being the instrumental outsiders – the latter also contains some of the heavier guitar) on the album (culminating in “Other Gods” and the album closer “Turn Toward The Sun”, which are the calmest songs on the album), characterized by a minimum use of distortion and volume in the guitar...but that don't mean there isn't any heftier passages as well. When in that mood, the sound shifts from wacky Stoner (check “Sky Full Of Witches”) to Southern Boogie/ Rock (the more energetic “Temple Smasher”), and to something more atmospheric (“Haystacke At Twilight”, for instance). Center piece of the album is the near 21-minute opener “Dick Cheney”, which goes through several moods, from Ambient-atmospheric to church organ over synth Ambient into Psych-Guitar, and some heavy duty guitar in between, before ending in an explosive combination of both weird synth noises.
Well, I'm actually loosing precious time trying to explain things (hum...not really, eh...because these words are meant as an incentive to make you, the reader, wanna check out the artist at hand), because you can listen to the album's music (and all other music by this dude) by surfing to his website (www.) markdeutrom.com. In the “SoundCloud” section, you'll find no less than 45 tracks posted, and to know where they come from, you can compare to the “BandCamp” section (where you'll find the new album posted in its entirety, with possibility to listen to all tracks/ songs). Enjoy your browsing, and consider Brief Sensuality And Western Violence for your year-lists...like I do!