RED - Fingerprints (Dealmaker) Comentários: Red made his initial musical forays as a drummer, before reinventing himself as a scratch musician. He is now an accomplished producer and turntablist in the midst of releasing his debut album Fingerprints, and taking scratch music to a new level with his band, Full Fat. Red grew up in the suburbs of London, and took up drumming aged 11. Two of his biggest musical influences were his younger brothers, who are now both seasoned session musicians. With his siblings, he grew up playing and recording music constantly, learning how to play guitar and work multi-track machines. He wrote and produced his own songs with a four-track, playing every instrument from the drums, guitar, bass, to the keys, developing his song writing and production skills. Such experiences afforded him an invaluable musical upbringing which aided him once he began exploring his interest in scratching. Without a sampler or looping machine, Red began producing layered turntable tunes with a multi-track – a process which forced him to develop a different way of thinking about the turntable. In 2002, Red spent a year in the Bay Area, California, an area renowned as a turntablist hot spot. During this year he was exposed to a new, cutting edge scratch movement spearheaded by Ricci Rucker, which impacted significantly on his artistic direction. Inspired, Red returned to England and began work immediately on what would become his debut album as well as his simultaneous release, the Seen EP. These works received praise from the leading figures in scratch music today, including Ricci Rucker, Mike Boo, D-Styles, and DJ Woody, plus Hip Hop aficionados from Grand Slam/Big Daddy Magazine. Red also formed a band upon his return from California. Full Fat became the live outlet for his turntable ideas as well as a brash style of writing that Red had explored with his Seen EP. Red made the turntable the lead instrument amongst synthesizers, guitars and drums, and the band's cohesive fusion of Rock, Electro, Hip Hop & Funk has meant they have enjoyed massive crossover appeal and are tipped for big things. Red continues to explore the potential of the turntable as an instrument with both electronic and acoustic instruments, and is currently working on numerous production projects, including the follow up to Fingerprints. nota do editor [Para Ouvir/Samples]
ONRA - Chinoiseries (Label Rouge) Comentários: Brilliantly odd instrumental hip hop album here from Onra, compiled and constructed around vintage Vietnamese pop records picked up in flea markets on a trip to the far east. 32 short tracks make up "Chinoiseries", each of them clocking in at the 1 or 2 minute mark and delivering a tight selection of beats that somehow bring to mind J Dilla, Rza, Madlib, Moondog, MF Doom and the Sublime Frequencies label rolled into one beautifully incoherent package. Having a ravenous appetite for the "Radio Transmission" style beloved of the aforementioned Sublime Frequencies crew, we might be perfectly primed for this sort of thing, but while the dusty exotica, folk and plastic pop of the source material here could so easily have ended up sounding like the sterile plunderphonic coffee table beats that typified so much instrumental hip hop in the late 90's, Onra manages to harness the mystifying magic of the original material and
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