Ava Mendoza
Shadow Stories

"What obscure, overlooked master playing in some slashing, raw-yet-virtuosic manner is this?" asked Nels Cline.
In this, her solo debut, guitarist Ava Mendoza starts from old melodies already tattooed on your brain, then applies sufficient heat to peel that paint leaving you re-pinked and wondering what's next.
What's next are original compositions, heavy, gorgeous, oddly reverby, layers that build, blister and flake away to alight indelibly on your mind. Just as Mendoza reprises those traditional tunes, you discover she's walked you far into a lost countryside. How, or whether, to get back will be your own business.
Gatefold package with artwork by Suzanne Shaffer, mastered by Jake Rodriguez, and liner notes from Nels Cline.

AVAILBLE VIA PAYPAL- $10

Mute Socialite
More Popular Than Presidents and Generals

"Mute Socialite... draw freely from free-jazz, improv, metal, and noise to create pounding and unorthodox sonic vignettes that are impressive for their velocity as well as their technical dexterity... the songs are engaging and controlled... and there's nothing fey or abstract about their demanding sonic wallop. This is an experimental / free-jazz album that hardcore metalheads can appreciate (or should that be the other way around?), with plenty of dynamics and surprising changes in direction to go with the hyperkinetic drumming, machine-gun riffing, and howling guitar excess." - The One True Dead Angel
"Rapid-fire, agile pieces, a slashing noisy attack with thickly dissonant chords. A sense of abandon but played with precision. Solid, crisp rhythms and speedy riffs -- so you can rock out *and* enjoy your brutal harsh noise all at once...The skeleton of prog's multifaceted writing, the blood of 150-degree speed metal, the overcaffeinated nerves of well executed punk rock." -Craig Matsumoto, KZSU Zookeeper

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Lindsay/Mendoza/Smith/Walter
Jus

Jacob Lindsay (Ab, Bb, bass and contrabass clarinets); Ava Mendoza (guitar); Damon Smith (7-string ergo-bass and lloopp) and Weasel Walter (drums, percussion and bagpipe chanter)

"... tapestries of microtonal and adumbrating silences are woven into many of the tracks on Jus... As the growling undertow from the contrabass clarinet remains almost static, a sequence of pitch-sliding string movements takes centrestage. Adagio in tempo, Mendoza’s finger-styled picks and multi effects link up with Smith’s seminal string shaking and Walter’s rolls, pops and drags until the interface fades into intermittent silences." -Ken Waxman, Jazzword

"This is a particularly strong improv date from four of the Bay Area's finest." - Downtown Music Gallery

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Ava Mendoza
Corporeal Crises

    A collection of tape (fixed media) pieces, created 2004-2007. The pieces form a five-part series based on the human body-- voice, blood, muscles, guts, and brain. Chaotic but highly organized, harsh but still melodic at times. Mixing board feedback, prepared guitar, tape-generated noise, moog and other analog synths, and Max/MSP were used.

to the larynx! metastasis
blood.pulse's memento song

AVAILBLE VIA PAYPAL- $5