Album Notes

MARK GOULD and Pink Baby Monster is a 3 member chamber music/performance art ensemble. The group is composer driven; all musical compositions and poetry are written by members of the ensemble.

The instrumentation of MARK GOULD and Pink Baby Monster is trumpet/electric trumpet/echo cornet; guitar; computer samples, myriad midi components and drum samples; vocals.

MG/PBM works extensively with video artists. Video is a major component of the ensemble's presentation.

The musical roots of MG/PBM are wide and reflect the influences of the members of the ensemble whose ages span more than 2 generations. The musical ingredients of the ensemble are drawn from opera, electronica, beat-based minimalism, jazz and rock with a generous seasoning of hip-hop and Tibetan throat singing.

The inspiration for the poetry and musical monologues is not drawn from the usual sources. MG/PBM's muse is politics, religion, science and mathematics, contemporary aesthetics, and various cultural ironies and peculiarities.

Ensemble origins and history

On 9/9/01, Mark Gould and his friend of 35 years, painter/sculptor/video artist, Michael Zansky began work on a multimedia piece, an over the top satire, a humorous encapsulation of the pious, voracious, excessive, naïve, arrogant, omnipresent beast that is American culture. We began writing lyrics and music and gathering images. The icon, PINK BABY MONSTER, was born. When 2 days later the world was turned on its head by the mass murder of 9/11/01, PBM was thrown into a much harsher perspective. The satire took on a much darker edge. The starkness of PBM's world view and the prescience of its lyrics became even more compelling ("pink baby monster, she's bored when she's adored, her eyes only see when she's looking in the mirror, can't get away from her face, it's all over the place, she thinks everyone loves her, the whole human race"). The project took on a sense of urgency.

Gould began what was to become an ongoing musical collaboration with boiledjar (Brian McWhorter) and Weijyles (Kyle Sanna). The subject matter of the songs expanded beyond politics into many other cultural topics. The music extended its purview and became more interesting. What began as a one time recording project for an art installation evolved into a band.