UnKindness Of Ravens formed in 1991 as an experiment with group consciousness modification and unconventional sound construction. Over time, this experiment coalesced into the formation of a new practice in music-making.
While the large and often changing ensemble uses some traditional instrumentation, the bulk of its sound comes from self-constructed instruments—often created much like its music, in surreal automatic style shifting as the course of play dictates.
While it may most appropriately be grouped with noise music or musique concrète, the ensemble describes itself as performing musical scribble. This term comes from its method of recording and composing. UnKindness Of Ravens always records its music first and composes its songs second.
Musical scribble, is a blend of the excitement, astonishment, and groove in improvisition with the method of reverse composition that UnKindness Of Ravens calls exposition. Joshua Chalifour and Michael Keigher treat the recordings as sound palettes for composing (exposing) the albums.
(By the way, we are not the Irish “doom metal” band with the same name, which replaced our entry in Wikipedia. We are not the German “electro-rock” band with the same name that Spotify refuses to stop crediting our music to. We predate those groups and do not know them.)