FACT MAGAZINE

FHLOSTON PARADIGM

THE PHOENIX

HYPERDUB

6.23.14

“Of the vocal tracks, the album highlight ‘Tension Remains’ lives up to its title, owing as much to spiritual jazz as to the space opera of The Fifth Element, Pia Ercole’s rich, suspenseful melisma a perfect counterpoint to the slowly building rhythm and buzzing synths. Her soulful vocal also features on ‘It’s All About’, one of the more understated tracks, and the percussive workout of ‘Letters of the Past’.”

King Britt draws from The Fifth Element, Blade Runner and more on his first Hyperdub album.

Science fiction and electronic music have long been bedfellows, from Detroit techno deploying its mythological tropes as conduits for themes of racial oppression and civil rights, to more recent works by Kode9, u-Ziq and Kuedo. King Britt’s debut LP as Fhloston Paradigm fits rather elegantly into this model. In interview, he’s described The Phoenix, his debut album under this alias, itself a corruption of The Fifth Element’s Fhloston Paradise, as a “re-scoring” of soundtracks from such sci-fi classics as Blade Runner and The Fifth Element.

In fact, the most immediate contemporary touchstone for The Phoenix isn’t Kuedo, whose debt to Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack is equally hard to overstate, but Nicolas Jaar. Britt has a similar knack for folding disparate threads into his own design, here drawing on sci-fi film soundtracks, Afrofuturism, techno, ambient and soul. Like Space Is Only Noise, The Phoenix never quite settles on one style, but even as it takes in all manner of genres it rarely loses focus, thanks not only to its conceptual core but also to Britt’s command of melody and sequencing.

The album is split fairly evenly between vocal tracks and sprawling, slow-burning instrumentals. Clattering snares and a heavy bassline are ballast for the dazzling synth arcs of ‘Race to the Moon’, and when they lift the noodling they leave behind is cut off at just the right moment, cosmic without being indulgent. ‘Chasing Rainbows’ pivots on a dubby bassline, swooning synth chords and drum machine hits that slap hard, while ‘Never Forget’ is all broken rhythms paired with heady chords and vocal snippets plastered in echo.

The Phoenix’s dramatic apex, its nine-minute title track, is dub techno as seen through the prism of the album’s conceptual underpinning, its percussive skeleton overlaid with gurgling melodic passages, bleeps and echo, their push and pull the stuff of pure narrative drama. ‘Portal 4’ and ‘Portal 3’ are interludes that wouldn’t be out of place on a genuine soundtrack, perhaps to a fault; although they flesh The Phoenix out, the voiceovers feel a little too obvious and their emphasis on sound design threatens to dwarf the musicality of the rest of the album. The same can’t be said for the opener ‘Portal 1’, which successfully pairs thrumming rhythms with ominous melodic touches and potent low end.

Of the vocal tracks, the album highlight ‘Tension Remains’ lives up to its title, owing as much to spiritual jazz as to the space opera of The Fifth Element, Pia Ercole’s rich, suspenseful melisma a perfect counterpoint to the slowly building rhythm and buzzing synths. Her soulful vocal also features on ‘It’s All About’, one of the more understated tracks, and the percussive workout of ‘Letters of the Past’. Only on ‘Never Defeated’ does The Phoenix feel overloaded, Rachel Claudio’s breathy refrain threatening to dwarf the bassline and fizzing rhythms. In contrast, the closer ‘Light On Edge’ is more pared down, featuring Natasha Kmeto singing over a contemplative, swirling instrumental. The Phoenix’s title alone hints at its ambitiousness, but even given the sheer wealth of variety and detail Fhloston Paradigm crams in, it’s never lofty or inaccessible; instead, it both upholds an electronic music convention even as it carves its own singular niche.

PUBLISHED
23 Jun 2014

WORDS BY
Maya Kalev

FACT Magazine – The Phoenix – Review

FEATURED ON RED HOT + BACH

Purchase: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/red-hot-+-bach/id868831403

Red Hot + Bach
http://www.redhot.org/news/red-hot-bach-releases-june-17th/

29 Original Bach Reinventions

1 Interactive iPad App

Featuring:

Rob Moose and Chris Thile, Dustin O’Halloran, Mia Doi Todd, Shara Worden, Paul de Jong, Julianna Barwick, Kronos Quartet, Victor Axelrod, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Daniel Hope, Ron Carter and Gary Bartz, King Britt feat. Pia Ercole, Om’Mas Keith, Francesco Tristano and Carl Craig, Jeff Mills, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Max Richter, Pieter Nooten, Jherek Bischoff, Stephane Wrembel, amiina, Prefuse 73, Burnt Friedman, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Stuart Bogie and Grey McMurray, Cameron Carpenter, Gabriel Kahane

Over the past 25 years Red Hot has changed the way people think about great composers such as Cole Porter, Tom Jobim and Fela Kuti, as well as raised money and awareness to fight AIDS around the world. Now, Red Hot has joined forces with the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) and Sony Masterworks to pay tribute to one of the greatest composers of all time—J.S. Bach.

The idea for the project was simple, explore the way Bach’s music has influenced modern musicians and allow audiences to adjust their view of classical music by seeing Bach through the lens of many other genres. These recordings re-think Bach, much in the way that artists have perpetually reinterpreted Shakespeare by adding contemporary touches while remaining true to the integrity and beauty of the original. This approach is true to the way current indie rock and serious musicians are studying, performing and composing new music that transcends labels such as “classical” or “rock.”
The iPad App allows users to listen and interact with Bach’s music in a totally new and immersive way.

• The “Play” section allows you to hear great Bach recordings while you create abstract drawings inspired by the music.
• The “Perform” section let’s you interact and transform the music based on different layers and instruments.
• You can also “Discover” an illustrated life of Bach, the Kronos Quartet performing in Edison’s original recording studio onto wax cylinder and more!

A song with Dotmatic as The Kinesiis Project on his album Lullabies for Fall for Record Breakin’ Music. (Pia Ercole on vocals and keys. Lyrics and co-produced by Pia Ercole.)

http://recordbreakin.bandcamp.com/track/thank-you-enough-lullaby-96bpm-ft-the-kinesiis-project-dotmatic-pia-ercole

“Dotmatic [released the conclusion in his Lullabies series on October 29^th, 2012], Lullabies for Fall. The ending of one thing, as usual, is the beginning of another and such is the case with Dotmatic. We’re introduced to his collaborative effort with Pia Ercole as The Kinesiis Project, which sounds terrific and definitely has us wanting more! …Prepare for The Kinesiis Project.”

http://bamalovesoul.com/2012/10/21/dotmatic-lullabies-for-fall/

Link to album on iTunes
http://tinyurl.com/8mpl4o5

King Britt and I had been having ongoing conversations about music for quite some time when he asked me if I wanted to collaborate with him. Two years ago he sent me a track, “Tension Remains”, for which he wanted operatic vocals.

It was an interesting situation: although I had trained classically, I hadn’t been interested in devoting my musical career to opera. I couldn’t marry the art form—I wasn’t in love. I did love the art of the song, however, in whichever incarnations it manifested, whether it was a chanson by Debussy, an exotic folk tune, a jazz standard, or even an aria from an opera standing on its own. I also loved improvising melodies and harmonies over any purely instrumental music whether it was orchestral, electronic, or perhaps solo piano–it didn’t matter. I was most interested in classical technique serving simple, honest, and beautiful singing devoid of histrionics.

I took this as the perfect opportunity to compose a vocal line(s) that would harken to the operatic beauty of the aria “Oh, giusto cielo!…Il dolce suono” from Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, sung by the character, Diva Plavalaguna in the movie The Fifth Element. I had no interest in caricaturizing the “blue alien”. I was guided first and foremost by the music that King had composed. Its story dictated every nuance of my phrasing and sound rather than any genre-specific tradition.

For the first time, with King, I felt like I had the sonic soundscape with the proper breadth and range to support and inspire my more “operatic” voice. With “Tension Remains”, King had scored an epic scene of post-apocalyptic ruin within which I would represent the beauty of the human spirit and also the pain, sadness, and longing, all of which are part of the human experience. My mother had just died some months before, and the ache was fresh. I drew on it to translate devastation and beauty through my voice and melodies.

 “Letters of Past” and “Its All About” followed. With these tracks King had scored more of the tale, and I sang to suite the sonic vibe of the scenes.

It’s so wonderful to see the release of King Britt’s amazing work and to be a part of it alongside Rachel Claudio, Natasha Kmeto, and Marlo Reynolds. I’m very excited for the world to share in Fhloston Paradigm through this recording and Fhloston Paradigm live performances!