I arrived at the Bloomfest in LA just in time to catch Killsonic’s live performance, a large fanfare-band made of (at least) 6 saxophone players, a trombone player, a tuba player, 2 accordion players, and 6 players of different types of drums, parading in the streets and exulting their cacophonic music.
The melody of their musical pieces, which cannot be called songs as they don’t have any lyrics, is to be found between the dialogue of their different instruments, and if their immense sound seems completely chaotic, there is a complete organization hidden behind the sonic confusion and the tumultuous rhythms.
Their rhythm section only plays outdoors, and could be mistaken at first for a marching band out of control, or a free jazz band with a gypsy side going crazy. The music surprises people by its spontaneity, and its improvisation feeling (although I’m not sure they really improvise), whereas the band members almost scare people by walking through the crowd which was still sparse at the beginning of the afternoon.
I have read they can be up to 30 members, as diverse as people from LA, and they bring their strangely dissonant and deranged sound to festivals and inaugurations.
Since it probably works much better live, this video captures pretty well what they are about: