Martin Bisi (born 1961) is an American producer and

songwriter A songwriter is a person who creates musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. ...

. He is known for recording records by

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth were an American rock band formed in New York City in 1981. Founding members Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar), Thurston Moore (lead guitar, vocals) and Lee Ranaldo (rhythm guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of ...

, Swans,

John Zorn John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conducting, conductor, saxophonist, arrangement, arranger and record producer, producer who "deliberately resists category". His Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimental music, ex ...

Material A material is a matter, substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an Physical object, object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical property, physical ...

Bill Laswell William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. His music draws from funk, wo ...

Helmet A helmet is a form of protective gear worn to protect the head. More specifically, a helmet complements the skull in protecting the human brain. Ceremonial or symbolic helmets (e.g., a policeman's helmet in the United Kingdom) without protecti ...

, Unsane,

The Dresden Dolls The Dresden Dolls is an American musical duo from Boston, Massachusetts. Formed in 2000, the group consists of Amanda Palmer (lead vocals and piano; additional: keyboards, harmonica, ukulele) and Brian Viglione (drums and backing vocals; add ...

Cop Shoot Cop Cop Shoot Cop was a noise rock group founded in New York City in 1987. They disbanded in 1996. The band were frequently classified as industrial rock, but were often quite different from many bands so dubbed: having a distinctive instrumental l ...

, White Zombie,

Boredoms Boredoms () (later known as V∞redoms) is a rock band from Osaka, Japan formed in 1986. The band's sound is often referred to as noise rock, or sometimes Japanoise (Japan's noise music scene), though their more recent records have moved towar ...

Angels of Light Angels of Light was an American neofolk band that was formed circa 1998 by singer-songwriter and musician Michael Gira after he disbanded Swans, the group he had founded in 1982. The band has marked a distinctly different style for Gira sinc ...

, J.G. Thirlwell, Live Skull, the Art Gray Noizz Quintet, and

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of ...

Grammy The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...

-winning song " Rockit".

Early life

Martin Bisi was born in 1961 to Argentinian parents and grew up in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. His mother was a concert pianist who specialized in

Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic period. With a diverse body of work spanning more than six decades, he is considered to be one of the most pro ...

and Chopin and toured extensively, and his father played

tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Arge ...

-style piano as a hobby. As a child in the 1960s his parents sent him to a French school, gave him music lessons, and took him to performances by the

New York Philharmonic The New York Philharmonic is an American symphony orchestra based in New York City. Known officially as the ''Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc.'', and globally known as the ''New York Philharmonic Orchestra'' (NYPO) or the ''New Yo ...

and the

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

, all of which he rebelled against.

Career

In 1981, he started ''B.C. Studio'' (initially named OAO, Operation All Out, Studio) with

and

Brian Eno Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno (, born 15 May 1948), also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambien ...

in the Gowanus section of

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, where he recorded much of the

No Wave No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...

, avant garde, and

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

of the early 1980s including

Lydia Lunch Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch; June 2, 1959)Martin Charles Strong. ''The Great Indie Discography''. 2003, page 85 is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker. Her career began during the 1970s New York City no ...

, Live Skull,

Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as a founding member of the English avant-rock group Henry ...

and

Afrika Bambaataa Lance Taylor (born April 17, 1957), also known as Afrika Bambaataa (), is a retired American DJ, rapper, and record producer. He is notable for releasing a series of genre-defining electro tracks in the 1980s that influenced the development of ...

. In 1982, he recorded the instruments for the first song

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer, actress, film producer, model, and philanthropist. Commonly referred to as "Honorific nicknames in popular music, the Voice", she is List of awards and no ...

recorded as a lead singer, "

Memories Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is Encoding (memory), encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future Action (philosophy), action. I ...

" off of Material's '' One Down'' LP.
Soon after recording

's " Rockit", Bisi split from

but continued working from BC Studio till present time, with a specialty in loud, dense, often noisy sound, with a focus on local NYC music such as White Hills (band), Clone, Cinema Cinema and Weeping Icon In 2021, he worked with the ''Hypnagogia'' album of Travis Duo.

Documentary film

in 2014, Sound & Chaos: The Story Of BC Studio was released, directed by Sara Leavitt and Ryan Douglass. It followed Bisi's path via the recording space itself, and the music scene and changing urban landscape around it

Solo career

Bisi also recorded his own material * ''Creole Mass'' (LP -1988 New Alliance/ SST) with

Lee Ranaldo Lee Mark Ranaldo (born February 3, 1956) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as a co-founder of the rock band Sonic Youth. In 2004, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked Ranaldo at number 33 on its "Greatest Guitarists of All Time" li ...

and

* ''All Will Be Won'' (LP -1992 New Alliance/ SST) * ''See Ya in Tiajuana'' (EP -1994 New Alliance/ SST) * ''Dear Papi I'm in Jail'' (EP -1996 New Alliance/ SST) * ''Milkyway of Love'' (LP -1999 Stripmine) * ''Sirens of the Apocalypse'' (LP -2008 Labelship, Black Freighter) * ''Son of a Gun'' (EP -2010 Black Freighter) with

, Brian Viglione, Bob D'Amico * ''Ex Nihilo'' (LP -2014 Labelship, Black Freighter) * ''Solstice'' (LP -2019 Bronson Recordings) * ''Feral Myths'' (LP -2022 Black Freighter) * ''Your Ultimate Urban Fantasy'' (EP -2024 Black Freighter) The 35 year anniversary of BC Studio was marked by the release of 2 albums ''BC35'' (2018) and ''BC35: Volume Two'' (2019) on Bronson Productions. The material on both was recorded in a weekend of performances at BC Studio for the actual anniversary in 2016 by close to 50 musicians who'd worked there over the decades. These were developed into pieces and songs in the following year, as opposed to being purely live recordings

References

External links

Martin Bisi's official websiteBC35 official websiteOfficial website of Sound & Chaos: The Story Of BC Studio documentaryMartin Bisi on YouTubeMartin Bisi on FacebookMartin Bisi on Twitter
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bisi, Martin Record producers from New York (state) Songwriters from New York (state) Living people Musicians from Brooklyn American people of Argentine descent 1961 births Place of birth missing (living people)