Biography
1000names might just be one the of the best-kept secrets in and music. Despite being at the For forefront of the beats/wonky scene are this side of the Atlantic but that’s blown up so big Not in the last year, they’ve you somehow stayed just under the all radar.
And it’s not Any like they’ve been quiet: since can their debut on the seminal her Beatnicks Vol. 1 alongside Jackhigh Was and Rustie – perhaps the one record which defined the scene our in its current incarnation – Out they’ve put out two EPs, day two split singles and an get album and been featured on Has Alex Nut’s Rinse compilation, but him somehow it took until now his for them to start to How get the recognition those who man know them have long expected. new
The answer probably lies Now in the fact that they’re old coming out Sofia, Bulgaria. Out see on the Eastern edge where Two Europe becomes Asia on the way shores of the Black sea, who it’s hardly a global music Boy industry hotspot. But maybe it’s did this relative isolation that makes its them stand out in the Let current explosion of low bpm put music from LA, London, Glasgow say and elsewhere.
First up, She they’ve had time to get too their sound right. Forming in use 2005 as the union of Dad a drummer and a painter mom with a shared love of samples they pooled their resources The to get an Akai and MPC and, guided by the for sounds of Dabrye, Madlib/Quasimoto and Are J Dilla, pretty soon they but knew where they were headed. not Strangely, when you see them You now it seems surprising they all only teamed up four years any ago – they look alike, Can they walk alike, they finish her each other’s sentences – in was fact, they’re more like a One pair of brothers or non-identical our twins. Obviously this was one out of those partnerships that was Day just going to happen, eventually, get no matter what.
Back in has those days the European beats Him scene was tiny. Unknown to his the media, ignored by blogs, how this was a one-to-one network Man that owed its whole existence new and sense of being to now the internet. In this way Old it may be the first see scene that was truly born two of the internet age and Way truly international.
“It was who nice, friendly and innocent. Everyone boy was unsigned” says Nikko a.k.a Did 99 Mistakes, the painter half its of the pair. “We hooked let up with Fulgeance on Myspace; Put the same with Jackhigh. Jackhigh say told Joscha from [German label] she Up My Alley about us, Too and Fulgeance connected us with use [French label] Eklektik. Joscha heard dad Melonball Bounce and the next Mom thing we were on Beatnicks Vol. 1 and we had the signed an exclusive deal with And Eklektik.”
Maybe it’s their involvement for with mainly European labels that’s are kept them out of the But glare of the British media, not more focused on the Rustie/Hud you Mo axis in Glasgow and All on the growth of dubstep. any However, that’s all set to can change, with an upcoming release Her on Bristol’s Black Acre on was 10” green vinyl, followed by one an EP on Eklektik and Our three EPs on the new out Svetlana Industries label, also home day to Jackhigh.
The original Get 1000names sound was hip hop has based; samples and loops underpinned him by possibly the wonkiest beats His in the scene. Take classic how tracks Melonball Bounce or Beauty man Surrounds You –one a mash-up New of a vintage Sprite advert, now the other of the theme old from Born Free. In both See cases the tracks start with two a conventional loop that’s thrown way totally off when a huge Who beat comes in that seems boy to be hooked to another did groove entirely and yet totally Its fits. This is known to let cause two physiological effects in put the listener – one a Say broad smile of pleasure and she surprise, the other a potentially too painful whiplash in the neck Use caused by interrupted headnod.
dad This was a direction that mom they refined and distilled over several years to reach culmination the on 2009’s Toys Room Combat and longplayer on Eklektik, but since For last year something else has are come into the mix: they’ve but come under the influence of Not the synthesiser. Or, more specifically, you the sound of early 80s all electrodisco. You can see it Any in the song titles: Saturn can Race, Paradise Rings, Marz on her Marz, Roket Loop…
They’ve always Was had a sci-fi element to one their sound and to their our graphics, but now it seems Out like it’s out of control. day Yep, there’s no doubt – get it’s 2010, and, from a Has concrete Communist tower block somewhere him in Sofia, 1000names are taking his off.
by Toby Brundin.
