Volcano the Bear are an improvisation

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

al/experimental English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 band formed in Leicester

Leicester

Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...

 in 1995. The group's members are Aaron Moore (drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

, trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

, vocals), Nick Mott (saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

, guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

, vocals), Clarence Manuelo (tapes, electronics

Electronics

Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

) and Daniel Padden (keyboards

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

, guitar, clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

, vocals). Although the principal roles of each member are as listed, the group use a large array of additional sound-making objects to create their music.

Early work

Their early work was characterized by theatrical live performances and unconventional recording methods; for example The One Burned Ma, their second full-length album, contains no track

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

s on which all four members appear. Having self-released a handful of cassette

Compact Cassette

The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...

s and CDR

CDR

- Medicine and health care :*Clinical data repository, a medical database system designed to provide a realtime summary of a patient's condition*Clinical Dementia Rating...

s, they came to the attention of Steven Stapleton

Steven Stapleton

Steven Peter Stapleton is a British musician and the only constant member of experimental improv outfit Nurse with Wound...

 of Nurse With Wound

Nurse with Wound

Nurse with Wound is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak...

, who revived his United Dairies imprint to release The Inhazer Decline, their first full-length album. However, a proposed collaboration with Nurse With Wound was not completed. They continued to release regular live CDRs on their own Volucan imprint, and later albums such as Five Hundred Boy Piano and much of The Idea Of Wood were performed live in the studio.

Hiatus

A hiatus in group activity occurred in the early part of the 2000s with Mott and Moore reviving their pre-Volcano the Bear unit Songs Of Norway. Manuelo created an album and EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 as Earthtrumpet. Padden founded The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden

The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden

The One Ensemble is a British musical group, based in Glasgow. The project was initially conceived by Volcano The Bear member Daniel Padden as a vehicle for his solo work, and their first three albums were released under the name The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden...

 initially as a solo project, later expanded to a quartet, with Chris Hladowski and Aby Vulliamy (both of Nalle

Nalle

Nalle are a psych-folk trio, based in Glasgow, who were formed in the summer of 2004. They comprise Finnish-English vocalist Hanna Tuulikki , Aby Vulliamy and Chris Hladowski...

), and Peter Nicholson. This unit has subsequently issued its releases as "The One Ensemble", with Padden releasing an album in 2006 of his solo material under his own name. Padden has also played with the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra.

Moore played drums on the 1999 L.P. Free Surf Music #1 by Alan Jenkins and The Thurston Lava Tube

The Thurston Lava Tube

This article is about a musical ensemble. For information on the lava tube of the same name, please see Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.The Thurston Lava Tube is a psychedelic, experimental surf instrumental band from Leicester, England....

, drummed for The Nightingales

The Nightingales

The Nightingales are a British punk/alternative band formed in 1979 in Birmingham, England. Original members were Robert Lloyd , Joe Crow on guitar, Eamonn Duffy on bass and Paul Apperley on drums, all formerly of The Prefects...

 for a while, and in 2005 formed the duo Dragon or Emperor with occasional VtB collaborator Stewart Brackley. He also released a solo album

Solo album

A solo album, in popular music, is an album headlined by a current or former member of a band. A solo album may feature simply one person performing all instruments, but typically features the work of other collaborators; rather, it may be made with different collaborators than the artist is...

 The Accidental on which Alex Neilson

Alex Neilson

Alex Neilson is an English drummer, percussionist and singer who is currently based in Glasgow but grew up in Leeds. He has performed alongside a large number of bands and artists including Lucky Luke, The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden, Ashtray Navigations, Alastair Galbraith, Isobel Campbell,...

 and Andrew Liles

Andrew Liles

Andrew Liles is a UK based sound artist and multi-instrumentalist. He has a vast output of recordings that he has released since the mid-1980s, covering a variety of styles as experimental music, dark ambient music, progressive rock and even hints at hard rock....

 appear. He is currently a member of the Brooklyn band Freetime

Freetime

Freetime was a twice-weekly children's television programme shown on ITV between 1981 and 1985. Produced by Thames Television, it was a magazine format show devoted to hobbies and interests, and was designed to encourage viewers to get out and about rather than staying at home and watching television...

.

Reunification

In early 2006 the band reconvened to release a double album Classic Erasmus Fusion to excellent reviews, and later that year released a live recording of their first performance as a full band in four years entitled Egg and Two Books.

Discography

Year	Title	Format	Label/Cat. No.	Notes
Volcano The Bear
1996	Vol One	Cassette Compact Cassette The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...	Volucan 001	Limited edition of 25.
1996	Vol Tu	Cassette	Volucan 002	Limited edition of 50.
1996	Vol III (iii)	Cassette	Volucan 003	Limited edition of 20.
1997	Volfur	CD-R CD-R A CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session.... /CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...	Volucan 004, later Beta-lactam Ring mt053.1
1998	Volve	CD-R/CD	Volucan 005, later Beta-Lactam Ring mt053.2
1998	The Inhazer Decline	CD-R	Volucan 006	Limited edition of 6.
1998	Volseptor	CD-R/CD	Volucan 007, later Beta-Lactam Ring mt053.3
1999	Volwheat	CD-R	Volucan 008	Recorded live in Leicester Leicester Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest... .
1999	Yak Folk's Y'are	LP LP album The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...	Pickled Egg 7
2000	The Inhazer Decline	CD	United Dairies UD055	Fewer tracks than 1998 version.
2000	The One Burned Ma	CD	Misra MSR006
2001	Five Hundred Boy Piano	CD	United Dairies UD50
2002	Guess The Birds	10" EP Extended play An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...	Beta-Lactam Ring mt028
2002	Volnono	CD-R/CD	Volucan 009, later Beta-Lactam Ring mt0 53.4	Some tracks previously featured on Volwheat.
2002	Xvol	CD-R/CD	Volucan 010, later Beta-Lactam Ring mt053.5	Live in East Hampton, Massachusetts.
2002	The Mountains Among Us	LP/CD-R	Beta-Lactam Ring mt045/Volucan 011
2002	Voleven	CD-R	Volucan 011	Only available with the Volucan edition of "The Mountains Among Us", features material by VTB and various other projects.
2003	The Idea Of Wood	CD/LP	Textile Records TCD3/TLP3
2004	All The Paint I Can Breathe	10"EP	Beta-Lactam Ring mt059	Material from the first three Cassettes. Some with additional 7".
2004	Voldozer	CD-R	Volucan 012	Recorded live in Glasgow, Paris and Nijmegen
2004	"Shake Your Crow Remix" / "Tunnels And Wheels"	7"	Gold Soundz GS#13	Limited edition of 310.
2005	Catonapotato	CD	Broken Face/Digitalis Industries DIGI14	Recorded live in Leicester Leicester Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest... , Sheffield Sheffield Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely... , Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...  and Norrköping Norrköping Norrköping is a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden and the seat of Norrköping Municipality, Östergötland County. The city has a population of 87,247 inhabitants in 2010, out of a municipal total of 130,050, making it Sweden's tenth largest city and eighth largest... . Only Mott & Moore appear.
2006	Classic Eramus Fusion	2xLP/2xCD	Beta-Lactam Ring mt092a/b	Some 2xLP sets come with an extra 7", and a special edition comes with a bonus LP and the 7".
2006	Volfurten	LP	Volucan 014	Limited edition of 300 with hand-painted covers.
2006	"Massive Furniture Invasion"	8"	alt.vinyl	Limited edition of 150.
2006	"Birth of Streissand"	7"	NO-FI NEU001	Limited edition of 150.
2006	Egg And Two Books	CD	Vivo 2006026CD	Recorded live at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester Leicester Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest... .
2007	Amidst the Noise and Twigs	CD	Beta-Lactam Ring mt204a
Volquince	CD-R	Volucan 015
11 Years Of Yes	CD-R Business Card	Twisted Knister Flupp 025	One track, limited edition of 40 copies in cigarette packet.
The Shy Volcanic Society At The Bear And Bird Parade	CD	Beta-Lactam Ring mt222	Split release with La Societe Des Timides A La Parades Des Oiseaux.
That People Don't Know They Are Monsters / Bow Heavier My Lord	7"	Quasi Pop QPOP REC 02
Volrudolf / Grande Pfungst	LP / CDR	Volfurten 01	Limited edition of 105 copies with hand-painted covers.
Volsechzehn	CDR	Volucan 016	Recorded live in Berlin, 2009 . Only Moore and Padden appear.
Planetary Bethlehem	LP	Beta-Lactam Ring mt205	Limited to 330 copies. 30 in hand-painted covers.
Hotbites Live At The Nighlight	LP	Blastocoel Sound 002	Limited to 100 copies. Live in Chapel Hill, NC, 2006.	Other Projects
The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden (Solo and group works by Daniel Padden.)
2002	The One Ensemble Of Daniel Padden	CD	Catsup Plate CPR714
2003	The Owl Of Fives	LP/CD	Textile TLP4/TCD4
2005	Live at VPRO Radio	CD-R	Brainwashed Handmade Series HAND002
2006	The Isaac Storm	LP	Ultra Eczema UE37	As "Daniel Padden". Limited edition of 400.
2007	Wayward The Fourth	CD	Secret Eye #32	As "The One Ensemble".
Songs Of Norway (Improvised music by Aaron Moore and Nick Mott.)
2003	Despite The Cloak	LP/CD	Beta-Lactam Ring mt058	Some LPs with additional 7".
2004	The Great Work	3" CD	Olwyn Plant SB007
Earth Trumpet (Solo work by Clarence Manuelo.)
2000	Earth Trumpet	CD	Cenotaph Audio CT004
2001	Roman	2xCD-R	Beta-Lactam Ring mt053.6	One audio disc, one with Quicktime movie.
Guignol (Aaron Moore, Jeremy Barnes Jeremy Barnes Jeremy Barnes is an American musician. He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the son of a local businessman. In 1995 he moved to Chicago to attend DePaul University but later dropped out. He joined the band Neutral Milk Hotel in January 1996. The band disbanded in 1998 and Barnes spent time... and Clarence Manuelo.)
2003	Angela, David And The Great Neopolitan Road Issue	CD	Cenotaph Audio CT009
El Monte Aranos (Nick Mott and Aranos.)
2003	Allied Cooking But Not As You Know It!	CD	Pieros 003CD
Aaron Moore (Solo project.)
2005	The Accidental	CD	Elsie & Jack #017	Some with additional DVD by Francesco Paladino with extra track.
Dragon or Emperor (Aaron Moore and Stewart Brackley.)
2007	Dragon or Emperor	LP/CD	Pickled Egg 64CD

External links

• Volcano the Bear at brainwashed.com
• One Ensemble of Daniel Padden at brainwashed.com
• Interview with Volcano The Bear (2008)
• Beta-lactam Ring Records
• Review of Five Hundred Boy Piano at losingtoday.com