TREY GUNN NEWS
KTU is:
Kimmo Pohjonen - Accordian & Voice
Trey Gunn - Warr Guitar
Pat Mastelotto - Drums & Electronics
Seeds for KTU took root at SXSW in Austin Texas in March 1999 when Kimmo Pohjonen shared a billing with Mastelotto/Gunn/Fripp's Project Three at the Electric Lounge. Plans for the quartet took shape over the next five years. KTU combines the creative energies, edge and imagination of the four players to make something new, different and musically explosive. Material is mainly comprised of compositions by Pohjonen and Kosminen, plus pieces by Gunn and Mastelotto and arrangements and improvisations by all four. Surround sound design and additional effects by Heikki Iso-Ahola. KTU rehearsals and the World Premiere concert took place in Helsinki at the venue Nosturi in April 2004, followed by four concerts in Tokyo at Eggman. All concerts were recorded on multi-track and released as the debut KTU CD, 8 Armed Monkey. The group performed numerous times in Europe in 2005 and 2006, plus Victoriaville, Canada. The KTU trio of Pohjonen, Gunn, Mastelotto toured Finland in January 2007 and North America in March 2007. (Note: Kosminen takes a break from the band during the first half of 2007.) During the spring and summer seasons, KTU are rehearsing and recording material for a new album.
Reviews
Aamulehti, Tampere, Finland
"KTU, the world's most psychedelic power trio!...KTU come on like a hybrid of Cream and latter day, King Crimson, led by a Siberian mushroom shaman" (Jussi Niemi, Aamulehti)
Rolling Stone magazine, Fricke's Picks, Aug 10 2006
"KTU (pronounced K2") are a quartet of devilishly integrated halves: avant-accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen and digital manipulator Samuli Kosminen from Finland, and drummer Pat Mastelotto and guitarist Trey Gunn from King Crimson. Their debut “8 Armed Monkey”, recorded live in 2004, is a robust tumult of Northern Lights sparkle, white-wolf guitar wail and rolling knotted thunder. Pohjonen is a wonder unto himself: animating his wind song with pedals and processing; attacking the bellows with the ecstatic fury of Jimi Hendrix. When I saw KTU play in Europe recently, they were as powerful and transgressive as the current killer Crimson (without, of course, Robert Fripp). But I was stunned to discover, after the show, that KTU have yet to get an American gig, because, Gunn said, promoters are afraid of the word "accordion". People, look at it this way: Pohjonen plays the ultimate in air guitar. Now hit the phone." (David Fricke, Rolling Stone)
FMM Festival, Sines, Portugal, July 30, 2005
"KTU, with the "diabolic" Kimmo Pohjonen, were the most applauded band of the last day of the festival.....If The Master Musicians of Jajouka are the ancestral spirits who's music has timeless resonance, KTU - "elected" by the crowd as the highlight of the night - imprison those same spirits in the urban schizophrenia of today. The project that reunites the Finnish Kluster (the accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen and the percussions and electronic samples man Samuli Kosminen) to the drummer Pat Mastelotto and the guitarist Trey Gunn, created on stage the hellish environment usual in Pohjonens music and went further to create convulsive, ghostly music, able to release gargoyles from its cement skin - and they, scarily, danced slow waltzes, improvised gothic jazz, adding unexpected funk in the encore, which was muscular and overwhelming." (Diario di Noticias , Mario Lopes)