Militia is the name of at least 6 artists.

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1) Militia is a Belgian industrial percussion band. It was founded in 1989 by the multi-instrumentalist Frank Gorissen and wind instrument player Jo Billen and now 6 musicians are involved. The band is known for its use of self made percussion and wind instruments and the scrap material they transform into musical instruments. The band's music is often inspired by the anarchic and atheist social views and their concirn about our natural environment, themes that can be found in most of their lyrics and statements.

In 1989, Frank Gorissen was active as a home recording electronic music artist and as an industrial music dj at the free radio station called "Radio Demervallei" in Diepenbeek, Belgium. As part of his show called "Radio Militia", he sometimes invited musicians to perform at the radio studio. During such an event he met the wind instrument player Jo Billen and together they founded the band Militia. Frank Gorissen recorded the early Militia music on tape, calling this project "Statement", playing a variety of percussion instruments mixed with the sounds of the wind instruments played by Jo Billen. They showed these tapes and talked about their plans of releasing their music to Mike Dando a.k.a Con-Dom, a British noise act, after they attended his performance in Antwerp. Mike Dando presented the band to the German music label Praxis Dr. Bearmann, after he had incorporated some of the Militia music for a few of his own releases. By that time Jo Billen had already left the band and formed his own music project "Onehouse". He was being replaced by Gary Vaes, Frank Van Hoof and Peter Vanderstukken, all three of them on percussion. The band now started composing powerful percussion music played upon layers of samples and electronic music. This style of composing music combined with their typical musical approach became the band's trade mark.

Tactical Recordings, the former Praxis Dr. Bearmann, released their following albums and made it possible for the band to record their music in a professional studio. Their first album New European Order - a 3 Lp set - was released in 1991 and became a major success; it was soon sold out. Several other CDs followed and the band can often be seen at major industrial music festivals throughout Europe such as Maschinenfest and Xphonozon in Germany, the Belgian Independent Music Festival and the French Deadly Actions festival, to name a few. End of 2008, after Tactical Recordings stopped being active as a record label, the Swedish industrial and experimental music record label Cold Meat Industry took over and decided to release all future Militia records.

The music of Militia can best be described as powerful rhythmic industrial and experimental music. Their sounds are generated from mostly self-made percussion instruments, using metal objects, scrap material, parts from machines, metal plates and tubes, empty gas containers, oil barrels, conventional drums, timpani and wind instruments and even a full metal radiator; with full equipment deployed, the stage has the appearance of a construction site. Frank Gorissen creates the backing sounds with a Korg poly 800/II synthesizer and devices such as digital delay and reverb machines. He uses samples created with the Roland SP 555 to upload the electronic music patterns and copies this music onto a basic sound tape. This tape is then used for creating the percussion and wind instrument patterns and layers, a job done by all Militia members. These patterns and layers are written down in a classical music notation combined with symbols of their own design.

After intensive rehearsing they go into a professional studio. The music is then being recorded on master CD and ready for production.

Militia was often compared to Test Department although there is a difference in style and musical approach between these two bands.

The band was invited to play at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, Belgium, where they performed the Nature Revealed concert, using self-made copies of prehistoric and Gallo-Roman music instruments. For this project, namely for the primitive instrument building and prehistoric language advice, they received the support and guidance of professor Ganzemans of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium.

Militia also represents a platform for anarchic social views. The ideas and social points of view of anarchism are best shown in their album The Black Flag Hoisted and in their book Eco-Anarchic Manifesto in which they combine the anarchic social views with their concern about the state of nature and our ecosystem. In this book, which comes with a CD containing the registration of a Militia concert in Lille (France) during the Deadly Actions Festival, the musicians explain their views on modern society spread over nine chapters and based upon the ideas and points of view of anarchists like Bakunin, Proudhon and Kropotkin. Frank Gorissen, the author of this eco-anarchic guidebook, presents an assembly of ecological and anarchic elements to create an alternative social philosophy by designing a blueprint for an eco-anarchic society, describing the anarchic social structure, the eco-anarchic economy, anarchic culture, education and defence, proposing the atheistic-anarchic moral as an alternative for our contemporary society, combining all of these elements with the role and function of nature in the organic structure of the anarchic society. The book is illustrated with drawings of Militia's music instruments made by the Belgian artist and Yawar dancer Leen Ruyters. The book also contains pictures of the historic anarchists and is written in English. Book and Cd are released by the German record label Tactical Recordings and the American label Malignant Records.

The "cross and circle" logo comes from centre part of the cover picture of the first Militia album "New European Order", where it represents the middle screw for attaching a metal circular saw blade and has no other meaning what so ever. The saw blade is an object used as percussion instrument by the band and representative for the music. On the "Nature Revealed" Cd cover however, this object was accompanied by a symbolic meaning, representing the four elements in Nature: water, fire, earth and air, also the four themes this CD deals with. The circle connecting the four edges symbolises the unity between these four elements, also repeated in the album "Everything is One". That album draws the attention to the natural evolution of life, demanding respect for our environment and for all living beings. It is a statement which is a source of inspiration in most of the Militia works: the scientific, anarchic and atheist view on society and life, excluding and leaving behind all supra-natural beliefs like the belief in god(s), the occult, spirits and spirituality and so on. The "Black Flag Hoisted" CD box includes a black flag with in the centre of it that very same figure, a symbol for their anarchic social view. "The Black Flag Hoisted" album is dedicated to the anarchic philosophers and organisations worldwide and to the Animal Liberation Front for their struggle against animal abuse.

2) Militia is an in your face, fast paced Punk/Rock band in Gladstone QLD Australia. Their website is http://www.myspace.com/militiaonmyspace

3) A rap group from California, best known for their hit "Let's burn".

4) A metal/rock band from Fife, United Kingdom.

5) An Italian avantgarde group born officially in late '82 and still active. Along a three-decades career many famous international artists worked with Militia: californian violin player Blaine REININGER of Tuxedo Moon fame; german poli-strumentist Chris KARRER, founder member of legendary Amon Duul II; japanese d.j./composer Nobukazu TAKEMURA; british multi-ethnic combo TRANS-GLOBAl UNDERGROUND; american avant-garde composer David SHEA; english experimentalists O YUKI CONJUGATE

6) A Texan speed/power/thrash metal band formed in 1984, releasing a few demos and an EP before splitting up. Now they are reunited.

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