Chris Brokaw is a New York-based singer/songwriter/composer/guitarist/drummer. He has released six solo albums of instrumental and vocal music. He is widely known as a founding member of the bands CODEINE and COME; currently he plays with THE NEW YEAR, DIRTMUSIC, and FFLASHLIGHTS. He has also performed and recorded recently as an accompanist to THURSTON MOORE, CHRISTINA ROSENVINGE, EVAN DANDO, STEVE WYNN, and JENNIFER O’CONNOR. He has composed music for the Dagdha Dance Company (Ireland) and Kino Dance Co (Boston), and scored the films “Road” (Leslie McCleave) and “I Was Born, But…” (Roddy Bogawa). Chris played drums with THE BOREDOMS in their performance 77 BOADRUM, for 77 drummers; and will perform this summer at Lincoln Center in RHYS CHATHAM’s performance for 200 guitarists.
In September 2008 Chris released CANARIS, an album entirely for solo acoustic guitar. The first half is unplugged acoustic guitar; the title track is an extended piece for electrified acoustic guitar. This will be his first performance of the album in its entirety.
Here is what the critics had to say:
”Half of his forthcoming solo guitar record, Canaris (Capitan), is acoustic, even the cover of “Drink the Poetry of Celtic Disciple” by French black metallers Vlad Tepes; throughout its gorgeous 13 minutes, he slaloms from simple fingerpicking to monolithic strumming, creating a near-cinematic narrative more nuanced and expressive than anything I’ve ever heard a metal band do. ” – Chicago Reader
”Deep in the heart of Canaris is the title track, a heroic slab of treated drone rock that sounds like Brokaw has been inhaled by a colossal black hole and is performing as all the atoms in his body slowly separate. At other times it sounds like he’s cleaving through a colossal piece of metal with an industrial power saw.” – Prefix
”Brokaw always excelled as part of bands like Codeine and Come in the past, but here, with no bass or drums to work with his guitar, with his sound left to stand alone, he still sounds like one of the most compelling guitarists in music today.” – Dusted