Grex:
Karl Evangelista - guitar, voice, misc.
Rei Scampavia - keyboard, voice, misc.
Robert Lopez - drums
Grex is an experimental/art rock band based out of Oakland, California. In biological terms, a "grex" is an entity composed of several smaller organisms. Grex (the band) explores the meeting point between surreal songcraft and the dark outer reaches of free jazz and industrial hip-hop. The group has been called an "otherworldly experience" (Eugene Weekly) and "true genre warping music" (KFJC), recalling at turns the ecstatic energy of Milford Graves, the electronic squall of Death Grips, and the lilting indie rock of Water from Your Eyes and Mitski.
Grex has performed at the Great American Music Hall, Solar Myth (Philadelphia), The Sonic Circuits Festival (DC), the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Chicago), the United States of Asian American Festival (SF), the Switchboard Festival (SF), and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The band also organized multiple online Lockdown Festivals in the midst of the 2020-2022 coronavirus outbreak, with proceeds directed to the Milford Graves Memorial Fund, Black Organizing Project, the Shuumi Land Tax, the Alameda County Food bank, and relief efforts for crises in the Philippines, Ukraine, and Palestine.
The band has worked with Fred Frith, Andrew Cyrille, Bobby Bradford, Zoh Amba, Luke Stewart, and Asian Improv aRts, and they've shared stages with members of Tune-Yards, Dirty Projectors, The Stooges, Kronos Quartet, Los Lobos, and King Crimson. Evangelista is an active improvising guitarist alongside the likes of Louis Moholo-Moholo, Oliver Lake, Ben Goldberg, Alexander Hawkins, and Trevor Watts.
Press Photos (by Lenny Gonzalez) (Click Thumbnail for Hi Res Photo)
Press Quotes
"Some of the most incredibly affecting and simply accessible avant-garde "rock" this reviewer has heard... essential current-and-future listening." -Tiny Mix Tapes
"[Grex] makes for an otherworldly experience that, while drawing on the sounds of Jimi Hendrix and classic jazz, creates something completely original." - Eugene Weekly
"Curious listeners will surely be rewarded... What truly makes this music special is the sense that it is deeply personal and unique to the story of the creators themselves." - I Care If You Listen
"Massive and Masterful." - SLUG Magazine
"With this album Grex are celebrating all of their influences, combining their loves and their current fears into something to fire at the world. At its best it is venomous and heart-breaking by turns." - OUTSIDELEFT (on "Grex: Everything You Said Was Wrong")
"Everything You Said Was Wrong walks the line between hip-hop and experimental rock in a truly unique fashion... the album overflows with creativity and its character is unlike anything else. A remarkable record." - Can This Even Be Called Music (on "Grex: Everything You Said Was Wrong")
"In a world amidst a pandemic and economic, environmental, and social upheaval, Grex delivers the perfect soundtrack that resonates in the current climate. Essential listening." - Ongoing History of Protest Music
"Grex has managed to bottle up the chaos they've experienced, and turned it into a rollercoaster of an album experience." - SOFLOSOUND (on Grex: Everything You Said Was Wrong)
"Bay Area duo Grex purvey a freaky jazz-rock sound that surges and feints in surprising ways. Karl Evangelista's guitar squawks and sizzles like a Fred Frith and Sonny Sharrock death match..." - The Stranger
"These Bay Area brainiacs trip out on a chilled-out yet complex attack of math-rock heroics, free-improvisational freak-outs, and psych-rock weirdness as they channel Henry Kaiser and Hendrix." - The Brooklyn Rail
"Grex is a fascinating band. One of those groups of musicians who have decided to ignore the boundaries between genres and take matters entirely into their own hand. And the results are marvelous." - Doobeedoobeedoo
