music: interview: B.R. Stylers
B.R. Stylers are an Italian reggae/Dub outfit with a
new album out right now! We talk to bass player Paolo Baldini about
what they do and who they are.
Accompanying Podcast - here-ish
www.brstylers.com
Q: B.R. Stylers started in 2000. What was your inspiration to be doing this?
A: B.R. Stylers are a reggae band with a typical live setup (bass, drums, keyboards and voice). From the starting point we radically decided to only play our own songs with a matrix of sound utterly oriented to dub.
Q: Please tell us about your lineup.
A: Michela Grena on voice, Paolo Baldini (me) on bass, G.P. Ennas on drums, Ras Antonio on keyboards and Manuel Tomba as dub master.
Q: There are references on your web page to the "UK sound system style". How would you describe that in contrast with other Dub styles?
A: The "UK Sound System Style" (Zion Train, Jah Shaka, Revolutionary Dub Warriors, Iration Steppas etc.) is the kind of style we elected as common ground for our music.
The British dub connected to the "Digital roots style" is the evolution of the traditional sound system which successfully took reggae music to a degree of enjoyment similar to that of dance music. Artists like Jah Shaka, who has selected reggae and dub since the seventies, finding themshelves in the English territory started making their own music with the ordinary systems used to produce house music (midi programming, electronic devices etc.)
As often happens in the history of Jamaican music, certain choices initially made to speed up the production develop an added value with time: the "digital roots music" sounded tough and accurate on sound systems providing the evolution of an approach to dance more and more cathartic on behalf of the public. That way you can see how this music – which is apparently artificial and mechanized – however preserves an intense mystic and spiritual undertone.
With the growth of the movement, the preference for reflective atmospheres and minor keys in which we reflect ourselves became more pronounced.
... continues below ...
Q: Generally people in the US and UK don't have much clue about what's goin on in the Italian music scene... would you attempt the impossible task of summarising it?!
A: From a musical point of view Italy is a reactionary country pleased by foreign things, where something unfamiliar to the mainstream hardly gets any visibility. Onerous responsibilities in history and culture like the Vatican and the Sanremo festival are still evident... Regarding our musical genre, Italy is faced with the birth of a first generation of dub producers who are making something out of their own nation as well (Dan I, Dub Terror, Moa Ambessa etc.). However in Italy there's also a particular attention to the reggae phenomena of dancehall and new roots with bands using Italian or local slangs in their music.
Q: Your first album in 2002 was released by a Slovenian label. Is Dub big in Slovenia? What are the main places for it would you say?
A: Slovenia is a really small country (about 2 million inhabitants). At the time of our first album there wasn't a reggae nor a dub scene yet, but, despite the restricted bigness of this country, they were interested in experimenting these musical ways more than Italy was. This is why an Italian band like us found the opportunity to publish their first work there.
Nowadays in Slovenia, as in other countries of Eastern Europe and ex- Yugoslavia, there's a considerable attention for reggae and dub. In these areas little and big festivals flourished steadily presenting the big names of the scene.
Q: Your newst album, Indubstria, is just out. Are you doing things any differently on it than in previous albums?
A: With respect to the previous albums (more yearning for experimentation) Indubstria is radically oriented to a more orthodox reggae-dub inclination, even though at first we approached the music in a songwriting form to reintroduce them again in their respective dub versions, produced in the traditional way of King Tubby's school, actually employing all the resources that existing music production can give us today, always with some kind of consideration for the use of vintage tools (tape echoes, spring reverbs and analogue mixing).
Q: Dub has always seemed an organic sort of thing to us, and amongst its fans there wouldn't be that many budding planet despoilers. Do you think these sort of messages come intrinsically from the music itself or is more an accident of who cottoned on to it?
A: I think that the message of an environmentalist value can't be stranger to a type of music evoking universal love ("one love") apart from its religious and critical connotation.
Furthermore, in our individual idea of spiritual message in this music, we tend to overlay the image of God to that of nature seen as a living planet, a balance we can't take ourselvers away from. The definitive extinction of our civilization will be the response to our missed acts to help this balance.
Q: You've played many countries in Europe but not the UK which surprised us. Any plans that way?
A: Being a band and not a dj set, we find it more difficult to play in the "nation of sound systems". The UK circuit offers more opportunities for live sets or dub shows centered on a sound system context, at least for bands not being part of the mainstream. This doesn't mean we won't play in the UK in the future.
Q: What are your plans for Summer 2009?
A: We consider Summer 2009 already underway and we're sorting out the promotional tour for our album in our country at the moment. By Autumn we're planning a tour in the Eastern Europe. During Summer, with our label (Alambic Conspiracy), we'll be publishing a dub follow- up of Indubstria featuring several collaborations and more oriented towards a dub inclined to the sound system scene.
Bookmark:
post to Delicious Digg Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Recent on Mstation: music: Vivian Girls, America's Cup, music: Too Young to Fall..., music: Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Berlin Lakes, music: Atarah Valentine, Travel - Copenhagen, House in the Desert
front page / music / software / games / hardware /wetware / guides / books / art / search / travel /rss / podcasts / contact us