Edgars Rubenis is a Latvian experimental guitar player who has recently started a solo project under his own name. He has been working in various genres of modern rock music, and so far is most notable for activities with Mona De Bo, a slow-core band he and drummer Edgars Eihmanis established as a duo in 2005. Working in this collective took him to performing at the SXSW and NYC, playing concerts in North Eastern Europe and Russia, getting airplay on BBC, WFMU, Noise .fi radios, and working on a soundtrack for a theatre play. Mona De Bo has released two albums, the third currently in the process with an estimated release set in autumn 2011. The band's second album
Nekavējies, īs ir spēles ar tevi was nominated the Best rock album at the Latvian Music Records awards 2010.
In 2010 Rubenis decided to start performing on his own, in order to pursue his interests in avant-garde music and performance art. In his solo performances, involving the effect of chance and improvisation combined with a sound palette that includes drones, noise, and sounds of a prepared guitar, Rubenis challenges his own and the listener's preconceptions of music, what it may or may not sound like, and what its use and place in life should be. He is interested in looking at music as a mechanism for training a person's ability to focus and pay attention, stay calm, alone, be amidst the unknown, release one's self from the constant seeking of meaning, which too often leads to approbated clich้s.
He is also interested in collaborations with other artists, the most recent being recording sessions and shows done together with the Russian saxophone player Ilja Belorukov and shows with English folk & noise artist Tim Holehouse. In the beginning of the year 2011 Rubenis participated by writing music and performing as a musician / actor in a physical theater performance produced by a Latvian independent theater company Nomadi. The performance explores the life and work of the English playwright Sarah Kane using the language of modern dance, live music and theatre.
Rubenis has supported Peter Broderick at his show in Riga last November, performed at the Heliosphere festival in Tallinn, Estonia and Noise and Fury festival in Moscow, Russia, June 2011.
Rubenis has been actively involved in music since 1999 when as a guitar player and singer he led Driving South a jam & improvisation inclined blues trio of teenagers, giving electrifying, highly energetic performances in clubs and blues festivals around the Baltic States. He also has played in MOFO a band whos LP
Rocket is considered one of the most important indie rock albums in Latvia in the first decade of the 21st century. Other bands he has been involved with include Tesa, The Burning Kulba, bernurits, 100 White Souls, Amorālā Psihoze.
myspace.com/edgarsrubenis
monadebo.com
Appearances:
2011 ICAS SUITE SKANU MEZS / MUSIKPROTOKOLL
