Ataxia

John Frusciante (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), Joe Lally (of Fugazi), and Josh Klinghoffer (of The Bicycle Thief, PJ Harvey and The Diary of Ic Explura) are collectively known as Ataxia. Their first record was released in 2004, named Automatic Writing as part of John Frusciante's six albums in six month collection. This experimental album is the first of two halves. The second half, AW II, was released on March 6th 2007.

The word "Ataxia" is Greek for "disorder". In keeping with the names' Greek meaning, the sections of the songs never had an arranged order. All the songs' foundations are the bass which always plays one part throughout. The drums and guitar move about and generally use the vocal as their guide. The vocals and words were written, but the order the vocal sections occurred in, and how long the spaces between were, was different every time. So the band members would all stay on their toes to stay together for dynamics, changes in groove, switches to new sections, etc. They played two shows and recorded two records.

The first record was named after the surrealist activity called "Automatic Writing". That was where people like Andre Breton and Max Ernst would write words in the form of sentences and paragraphs, but with absolutely no conscious attempt at meaning. They would observe the structure of their subconscious and it’s peculiar methods of organization (or the lack thereof) this way. The band gave absolutely no thought to what they were doing, whatsoever. This music is unblemished by any expectations of a specific result, on the musicians' part. The three of them simply got together to hear what music had to say that week. They had fun together and this is the record of that fun.

An Ataxia reunion campaign has been launched on 28th March 2008. http://www.ataxiareunion.com