Domestic Front

Thom K Bailey a.ka. The Domestic Front is a nomadic electronic musicianwith the ambitious purpose of getting people to understand the liberatingpotential of noise and chaotic sonics. From an early age Thom was interestedin the "experimental" end of the sound spectrum. Suffering from fitsof asthma, some of them near-fatal, he would try to make the most ofthe situation by training the asthmatic wheezes and squeaks into a "vocal"form, sometimes accompanied by blasts of radio static. It was just onefacet of a bizarre childhood, which also took in frequent audio andvisual hallucinations, constant relocation and intense nightmares. Anotherearly discovery of recorded sound's conjuring ability came when a 7-yearold Thom, armed with a primitive bird-calling machine, summoned a whiteowl (which was not indigenous to the area) to the deck of his home ina remote area of Illinois. The owl remained perched on the deck forseveral hours, looking perplexed as to why it had been "called out"at that time of night.

Even today Thom's work favors the childish sense of uncertainty and,yes, abandon in music to post-adolescent preening and hand-wringing,romantic longing. He also disdains certain formalistic exercises undertakenby "serious" academic adults when they lack visceral impact. In fact,many Domestic Front pieces are composed intentionally as gateways outof the compromised, rationalized middle ground of adulthood or the self-absorbedcatastrophe of adolescence. The name "The Domestic Front" itself isa deliberate swipe at the alleged comfort or domesticity that is oftenthe goal of these existences. With just a palette of odd sounds andfrequencies, Thom hopes to map out the chthonic and often ecstatic worldswhich lie beneath this thin, complacent veneer.

Sonically, the Domestic Front's music is a mesh of heavily camouflaged, processed electronics and similarly obscured environmental noises-the aim is to, through disorientation, create a zero point, free ofreference to any external phenomena. Certain clues are posted throughoutthe songs: monks knocking woodblocks, birds calling and responding,nervous dialtones. As a whole though, the listener is trusted with theinterpretive freedom to recognize these sounds as something else entirely,and to choose the most personal, rewarding interpretation.

In his high school years, Thom cut his teeth on the abrasive and confrontationalworld of industrial music, rapidly wearing out tapes of the Swans, Coil,and Throbbing Gristle. Upon relocation to Chicago in the 1990s, Thomworked as an intern and sometime roadie at Invisible Records, a labelowned by PIL's Martin Atkins. Here he was able to further explore hisinterest by meeting TG founder Genesis P Orridge, with whom he has remainedin contact to this day (he is currently working on a Japanese versionof Genesis' archival web site.)

While pursuing a literature degree at Chicago's Columbia College,Thom participated as a synth player in the viciously eccentric performanceart troupe Zeek Sheck, whose sentiment-free improvisations and absurdcostumes served to differentiate them from a horde of other "no wave'musicians in Chicago at the time. As an employee of Chicago's Museumof Contemporary Art, Thom also was given access to the sound art limitededitions in their basement archives. Although without a record dealor the resources to make large editions of material, Thom stayed industriousand labored on one-off CDs for friends' student film projects, countlessMP3-only songs under a variety of pseudonyms, and collaborative mail-artwith friends in San Francisco and Japan.

The fall of 2000 saw Thom relocate to Osaka, Japan, where he wouldspend the next 2 years in a state of unremitting insomnia, which dideventually cause very real nerve damage. This didn't stop him, however,from finding inspiration in Japan's incongruous environments and convertingit into what is the Domestic Front oeuvre to date. From October 2000to October 2002 Thom assembled the necessary sounds for 3 cds "DecayingFlorescence", "The Smashed Holograms Sing" and "Doll Forge" with a 4th"The Actions of our Consequences" nearing completion. In addition, afterbeing taken under the welcoming wing of unorthodox music venue Zenkojitemple's Ishigami Kazuya and Kawaguchi Ryonin, Thom was invited to playa number of concerts in Osaka and the surrounding area. These rangedfrom solo outings on a heavily modified "bionic" bass guitar to quietcafé conversations utilizing laptop and minidiscs. In all cases thegenerally reserved Japanese audiences were taunted out of their shells.

Along with the Domestic Front, Thom is inaugurating a new multi-media,multi-national label for the creatively warped arts, Belsona StrategicSchallplatten. Although music is a focus of this label, specializationis discouraged and artists are encouraged to do EVERYTHING by themselves,self-sufficiency being a key to reclaiming raw sound- no longer usingit as a backup to intriguing music, but as an equally potent entitywhich stands on its own.

The lure of the unexplored, and a crumbling sociopolitical situationin the Disunited States have led Thom to Prague, where he will live,work and perform until further notice.