PAK

In 2000 multi-instrumentalist Ron Anderson launched PAK after years of activity as a performance artist and studio innovator across Philadelphia and New York throughout the 1980s. His creative routes have consistently returned to the meeting point of punk rock and free jazz. While living in Philly he shared quarters with and performed alongside the band Rat a Rat R. Shortly afterward he assembled the Molecules, his “free rock and Dada concept” outfit, together with Chris Millner and Tom Scandura. Distinct from an earlier British group of the same name, this version of the Molecules was based in Oakland, California throughout the 1990s.

PAK’s original lineup assembled in New York and featured guitarist Will Redmond, later a member of Time of Orchids, bassist Jesse Krakow of Cuneiform’s Beefheart cover band Fast ‘n’ Bulbous, and Raceage, Dogbowl’s drummer, who had already been working with Anderson as a duo before the band formed. Although Anderson has cited influences ranging from Charles Mingus to the Minutemen, PAK’s high-velocity approach plainly fuses the sensibilities of Zappa, Beefheart, Elliott Sharp, and John Zorn. In addition, Anderson’s immersion in progressive underground Japanese music while in the San Francisco Bay Area during the early 1990s left a deep and enduring impression. In 2000 he and PAK toured the central and eastern United States alongside the fiercely energetic Japanese avant-rock duo Tatsuya Yoshida and Hisashi Sasaki, self-described admirers of the Molecules. When appearing with Anderson the internationally renowned Ruins adopted the name RonRuins for the trio.

PAK debuted in Europe at a festival in Mhere, France in August 2001 and performed additional dates in Germany, Holland, and France during both the spring and autumn of 2002. The group’s debut album, 100% Human Hair, arrived in February 2003 under the production guidance of Elliott Sharp. Its follow-up, Motel, surfaced in 2005 and was supported by a lengthy European tour plus a slot at New York’s Future Festival of Experimental Rock. By this time trumpeter Tim Byrnes had joined, and Keith Abrams had taken over the drum chair from Raceage. Anderson’s reunion with the Molecules and a 2006 engagement in Tokyo with Krakow and RonRuins postponed PAK’s next American and European tours until autumn 2008. The following year the band performed in the eastern United States while developing material for its next release. Appearances in Sweden and France in 2010 featured the addition of keyboardist and prepared pianist Eve Risser. The third album, Secret Curve, came out on Zorn’s Tzadik label in early 2011, with Anderson functioning chiefly as composer and director. Besides Abrams and Byrnes, the 2010 configuration also included Risser, pianist Anthony Coleman, woodwind player Stefan Zeniuk, and electronic/tape manipulation specialist Jerome Noetinger. The ensemble persists chiefly as one of New York’s most vigorous contemporary creative units, delivering music whose textures and temperament align with the more demanding dimensions of twenty-first-century existence. Anderson’s PAK is not to be mistaken for the similarly named rapper from Flint, Michigan, nor for any other acts employing the same initials to denote a link with Pakistan or its culture.