Black Dice

Black Dice
Black Dice at MassArt in 2006
Background information
Origin	Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Genres	Experimental rock, noise rock, ambient, electronic
Years active	1997–present
Labels	DFA, Fat Cat, Paw Tracks, Troubleman Unlimited, Three One G
Associated acts	Terrestrial Tones, Animal Collective, Lightning Bolt
Website	www.blackdice.net/dicemain.html
Members	Bjorn Copeland Eric Copeland Aaron Warren
Past members	Sebastian Blanck Hisham Bharoocha

Black Dice is an experimental electronic music group currently based in Brooklyn, New York, United States.

Black Dice formed in spring 1997 soon after guitarist Bjorn Copeland met drummer Hisham Bharoocha and bassist Sebastian Blanck when they were students at the Rhode Island School of Design. Eric Copeland (vocals) was still attending high school in Maine and would visit on weekends. Early shows seldom lasted more than fifteen minutes and were characterised by violent performances where injuries were often sustained by the band and audience alike. Live sets mixed structured songs with improvised sound manipulation, and shows differed from night to night. Later joined by Bjorn's brother Eric Copeland on vocals, their early sound has been described by Tiny Mix Tapes as thrash-influenced noise. They released several 7"s and embarked on a few brief tours before Blanck left the group.

In the summer of 1998 the band relocated to New York City where Eric Copeland was attending college. At an early New York performance the band met current member Aaron Warren who had recently moved from Los Angeles to attend NYU. began to experiment with their sound, While their earlier sound can be described as a mix of early-eighties-inspired thrash and harsh noise, the band has changed their music with each record and era of performance, Eric Copeland has stated about the band "We definitely have eras; we have records that feel like they indicate all the songs we were playing at that time.". and Bjorn has said that it's always been a very gradual progression for the bands evolution of sound stating "To be honest, I think we've been in this weird in-between space the entire length of the band. There will be these moments where people can identify really strongly to this one (sound)... Once it got kind of weird, the kids that were into hardcore really didn't like it.".

The band began incorporating more pedals into their setup and slowly leaving their earlier hardcore-leaning style in favor of more rhythmic music similar to motorik and dub music. Eric Copeland describes this transition as "...it stopped being thrashy and started being more sounds instead of songs." "Our shows used to be "all songs." Then it would be songs with these long transitions between things, instead of just flat or silent. When Aaron came along, we got better at that stuff, and that became more what we wanted to play. Playing the songs became secondary."