About Unsound: Bio

About Unsound: Bio

Unsound formed in late 1995 when Jim Speer of folk-rock band Broadside Electric joined Mike Ciul to do something more experimental. The two started playing feedback-drenched improvs with complex MIDI and audio interconnections.

Then Jim had a dream.

He dreamed that Mike was dressed up like a sailor, steering a captain's wheel onstage, while Jim wore a giraffe costume. The band took this to be a sign; Mike adopted the title Cap'n Mikee and bought himself a yellow raincoat, galoshes, and a captain's hat. Jim hasn't gotten a giraffe suit, yet.

Helene Zisook, the fiddler for Broadside Electric, joined Unsound for about a year. The trio extended their stage show to include more costumes and short vignettes of "low-budget performance art" designed to terrify and amuse.

After Helene left, Mike and Jim began work on a A Nautical Tale. As the Tale's scope expanded, they invited Mike Benedetti (of industrial zydeco band Stale Urine) and vocalists Heather Batson and Jessie Bennett to take part in the project. In the summer of 1998, A Nautical Tale was performed for the first time in Philadelphia. The audience was so stunned by the combination of story, slides, music, food, and mind control that the ensemble presented the play twice more during the following year, in Princeton and Baltimore.

Unsound are working on a sequel to A Nautical Tale.