To Live and Shave in L.A. (or TLASILA) stands as

one of experimental music's most vital and perplexing

institutions. Formed in Miami Beach, Florida in 1990,

the group have issued a challenging catalogue of music

intriguingly described by The New York Times as "wildly

inaccessible, specializing in garbled, tangled constructions

that gesture (violently, if mystifyingly) toward ..."

 

The ellipsis is telling, as the group, equally influenced by

film, literature, high art and trash culture, remain defiantly

uncategorizable, plying a trade "in dense hysterics which

stomp on the soft head of obviousness."

 

While TLASILA possess a formidable legacy worthy of

celebration, their unique operating system doesn't allow

for nostalgia. Tom Smith and Frank "Rat Bastard" Falestra

are the group's only constants, and they maintain a large and

rather nebulous pool of collaborators, everything from multi-media

artists to transgressive weirdos. This unpredictability constantly

forces To Live and Shave in L.A. to reinvent their music.

 

 

 

(The third and fourth TLASILA demo cassettes, July 1990.)