LOVE LIFE - Discography (2000-2002)

   (stolen with love from Jeff Winterberg's Rat-a-Tat-Tat Birds)

Love Life formed their unholy alliance in 1999 when long-time lovers cum bandmates, Katrina Ford and Sean Antanaitis (Jaks, Celebration) joined with bassist Anthony Malat (UOA, Great Unraveling, Bellmer Dolls), and drummer David Bergander (Arbouretum, Celebration).  Ford and Antanaitis left their homebase of Ann Arbor and their amazing band Jaks behind, eventually making their way out to Baltimore. They all moved in communally and formed a sound organic to that confluence. Practicing for several months before playing out, they developed, in the process, an amazingly insular performance aesthetic.  They often played on the floor, lit incense and a hundred some-odd white candles.  Ford's ferocious voice and her commanding stage presence pushed Love Life into the realm of spiritual experience.

Antanaitis plays an angular, woozy guitorgan (an electric guitar with the organ built into the frets!) with a style all his own and Malat, at his dirgy best, serves as the pummeling groove behind Katrina Ford's androgynous wailing.  I'd be remiss not to mention the advise found in the liner notes to both albums-- "We recommend listening to this recording on headphones."

Love Life

• After releasing their debut, The Rose He Lied By (2000), the band toured extensively, released a 7", then their final album, Here Is Night, Brothers, Here the Birds Burn (2002) on Jagjaguwar before they called it quits. 
• Thanks to My Tape Up In Here for the beautiful rip of the Hex It Out heart-shaped 7" (or is it a 10"?).

THE GREAT UNRAVELING - Discography (1995-1997)

(photo taken by cookiekixx AKA producer Chris Coady)

"The most important thing isn't really evoking the tension, but alleviating it. I know all three of us have found that the music that touches us the most has that liberating aspect."  --Tonie Joy

The Great Unraveling formed in Baltimore just nine months after the break-up of U.O.A (Universal Order of Armageddon).  Lead vocalist for the first time, Tonie Joy (MOSS ICON, UOA, BORN AGAINST, CONVOCATION (OF...)) showcases his distinctively squeaky yelp and furthers his reputation as one of the great underground guitar players. Where Anthony Malat (UOA, LOVE LIFE, BELLMER DOLLS) hardly knew his instrument when he started in U.O.A, he emerges as a beastly bass playing fashionista in The Great Unraveling.  While comparisons could be made to Drive Like Jehu and Unwound, the repetitious bass grooves and transcendental arpeggios here are more fixated on what lies behind the veil.   They released their first 7" on Vermiform Records.  Steve Albini produced their self-titled LP (Kill Rock Stars), and a 7" (released on Joy's own Vermin Scum Records) followed from the same recording session.  They called it quits some time in '97.

As legend has it, The Great Unraveling practiced in Tonie Joy's backyard, on the outskirts of Baltimore.   When the band played the song, "Wellness," ghostly spirits would congregate on the edge of the woods!  Joy has long held an interest in mysterious realms, both ancient and futuristic, from the cryptids in Moss Icon's artwork to the more celestial planes he's explored in his current group, The Convocation.  In contrast, Malat went on to plunge the depths with members of Jaks in the awesomely dark Love Life. 

 Alien landscape doesn't seem that alien at all...