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best in show |
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mykel, one-third of melbourne breaks crew nubreed, has discovered that it's not just melbourne rock 'n' roll that's hot in the uk at the moment. mikey cahill looks forward to catching them in action at two tribes. reminiscing about what the biggest moment in australia's dance music history thusfar is quite a contentious subject. some would say it was when dreams by quench exploded internationally in the early nineties, others could argue hmc's ahead-of-its-time phreakin was the glden moment. then you can rattle off tidbits like infusion's phrases and numbers and pnau's sambanova. but undoubtedly, when betting closes and the votes are counted, it is hard to look past a recent event on britain's radio one. top bbc announcer/dj annie nightingale played a live set of nubreed and phil k together (under the titanium breaks moniker with decks, effects and samplers) on saturday night, october 19th, over the massive radio one airwaves. as you well know, the show goes out to a few million pairs of feet, in what remains dance music's barometer region. that is some serious shit. mykel, one-third of nubreed along with jase and db, is winding down from shows nubreed have just played in the gold coast. he describes their stay on a houseboat while the indy 500 was on, painting a picture of an indianna jones impression. sounds like tsunami breaks. "because we are writing the album tayo (uk breaks dj/producer) wanted some stuff we were doing now," mykel revels, explaining how everything fell into place with the radio one gig. "we'd put together a live show edit as an international promo. so we recorded the hobart and brisbane gigs and put them together. the main thing was that it was a showreel to send around and drum up some work. tayo heard the live show and he played it on his radio show, then annie nightingale heard it and wanted to play it on radio one with the live show streaming. she was actually running it for about a week." sounds more like florence nightingale to moi. "results, man!" he enthuses. while we're reminiscing, let's take a peek at their history. nubreed came to fruition after twelve years of solid friendship and a few cruises down other musical avenues. the trio was brought together by diverse and (Dare i roll out another cliche) electic musical influences. they got busy writing in the studio and amancipated debut gen welcome on zero tolerance. that did the business, carving out nubreed's moody, uplifting (sans cheese) textures with a vocal hook that you could catch a shark with. triple j flogged it for months on high rotation, saving our ears briefly from plastic punk music. then sleeping with the enemy ep showcased the blend of influences too, highlighted by the ferious groove of midikilla. teaming up with phil k, the spliffed-up trio has previously given the once over to sonic animation's i'm afraid i think i'm human, morphing it into an epic, driving stomper. u.s. dj, and global trance tastemaker, danny teanglia dug it, thus so did everyone else. nubreed have also teamed up with phil k to rock seven's now-famed friday night breaks bonanza. the first stint drew arguably the biggest ever cowd to a local breaks clubbing event, another titbit of folklore to add to memorable australian dance music milestones. the second time around was just as large, the night peaking when they played their take on prince quick mix's led zepplin remake babe i'm gonna leave you. the response was so roaring that an executive decision was made on the night to go in and record the track live like a professional band, asap. armed with cheap wine and three day growths, they hunkered down in their studio the following monday. "we wanted to pay respect to the atmosphere of what the track was about. we wanted to keep some sort of essence to that feel. the approach was a little bit different - still nu-skooly type bass to it and progressive... in terms of pushing it forward," he clarifies. "but we wanted to get that (rockpigs in the studio) vibe. in many ways that sound is what we're developing for the album. we're warming people up to the sound." with lots of samples to be cleared for the eventual release of the track, mykel adds, "hopefully pqm is handling all the legalities." and, quick mix may have that much faith in the lads because he had previously rejected pete tong and paul oakenfold when they requested the remix. props to our boys. mykel laughs off the honour, "pqm has been down here and totally australianised." like many international dj/producers, pqm's head blew clear off his shoulders when he heard the local breaks purveyors. bewdy, maaaate. if you're keen to hear the much talked about mix, you can pick it up on the end of phil k's recent balance 4 double mix cd and no doubt your ears will were privy to it while you were out over the summer. meantime, the nubreed cats have remixed another booming voice, that of skin from skunk anansie. "it's called weak," explains mykel. "the whole deal with that is we're on the net all the time and we found a skunk anansie a capella vocal. we downloaded it and put the track together. we were experimenting." mykel admits there were no grand plans for the remix, until breakbeat don tayo heard it, flipped, and insisted on putting it out on his mob records label. "he said 'I know skin. they've broken up and i can talk to her and work it out'. it went to her and she really dug it," mykel reports. now the mix of weak has been handed over to the faceless major record company and now the waiting game begins. mykel adds about skunk, "i saw her live when she came out and she was fire on the mic." and in the most predictable yet appropriate of segues, nubreed also spark things up in concert. those who have witnessed their shows would know they are not content simply playing their concoction of charismatic-tribal-drum'b'bass-progressive-rock-electro-hop-hip breaks. they throw in elements of other tracks like bjork's hyperballad for instance to keep the crowd guestimating what they will do next. late last year, nubreed were nominated in the best live act category at the dance music awards. they even closed the award presentation, giving the australian dance faithful not-what-they-were-expecting with some futuristic, thought-provoking moodbdreaks. back to tayo for a second though, as he is very fond of the melbournites, and has released their double a side satellites/xenomorph 12-inch, which follows their ionosphere track. the tracks are being heavily spun, and continue to build the strength of mob. hybrid is another respected act that has been digging the nubreed sound, even asking the boys to sign their sleeping with the enemy ep when they were out here last year. mykel confides "hybrid will be there with us on the album, maybe doing some collaborations." between creative bursts writing their album, nubreed have found the time to remix way out west, tiesto, junkie xl and the aforementioned skunk anansie. the good word is that their remix of terminalhead's poison has even got the chin-strokers dancing too. at a guess i'd say even st john's volunteers and the drinks vendors will be dancing to nubreed this weekend - when you have this many tricks up your sleeve you can turn any crowd into a shuffling mob. fire on the mic. nubreed headling two tribes on sunday 9th march alongside junkie xl, layo & bushwacka, david morales, frankie knuckles, dave seaman, slam, speedy j, meat katie, warp brothers and heaps more at melbourne park. gates open 4pm. |
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credits |
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reproduced without permission from inpress street press in melbourne. to be used for private and research use only. |
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© copyright 2003 gavin stok. all rights reserved. |
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