Archive for April, 2009

just found an old vid of me looping ‘3 is the magic number’ by de la soul about a year ago….

PLEASE NOTE THE BROADCAST TIME HAS CHANGED TO 8PM!

On Sunday 3rd May at 8pm, Shlomo will be appearing on the Sky1 show ‘Guinness World Records Smashed‘ in an attempt to break the record for the world’s largest beatboxing choir.

He will attempt to create the choir on live television, training up the the 250 strong studio audience, as well as the presenters Konnie Huq and Steve Jones, in the art of the human beatbox.

this is valgeir sigurðsson..

he is an electronic musician from Iceland. I first met him when i went to record with bjork for her 2004 all-vocal album medulla. Valgeir is one of her long-term studio collaborators.

He released his first full length solo LP Ekvílibríum, with guest vocals from Bonny Prince Billy, in September 2007. I went to see him perform in a tiny church in Soho…the sound company had not realised just how small the venue was (around 30 people!) and had brought in a huge soundsystem big enough for a rave…

the music is quiet and peaceful. the performance was stunning.

who knows what will happen when we collaborate next month… looks like i am going to have to do some ‘quiet’ beatboxing. ever heard of that before??!

Performing in the studio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxBGtT9kab0

Video for the song “Evolution of Waters” featuring Bonnie Prince Billy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgKl11lZqm0

this is amiina… four female musicians from iceland who make tingly music with a crazy range of instruments.

they met at Iceland Music College over ten years ago, then forming a string quartet to back Sigur Ros in the studio and on their world tours. Now they have created their own sound where they play all kinds of instruments, including guitars, keyboards and mandolins, a saw, Celtic harps, metalophones, singing wine glasses, xylophones, glockenspiels, harmoniums, kalimbas, a Rhodes piano, synthesisers and tubas.

which is kind of the opposite of me, billy no-instruments. So yeah, i have absolutely no idea what we will do in our collaboration next month…!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39novn5B0-E

The video above is part of a 30 minute performance on Icelandic TV which you can see in full here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYIDUvAtiGc

Check out Gemma Riggs’ photos from the recent Beatbox Academy showcase at BAC. View the whole set here.

Contact Theatre in Manchester recently screened our documentary “The Beatbox Choir”, which follows the formation of the Vocal Orchestra. Some people at the screening thought we were wrong to call ourselves the “world’s first” beatboxing choir. I hadn’t heard of any similar projects at the time, but then again I didn’t look very hard. It turns out I was wrong – the Vocal Orchestra wasn’t the only beatbox group in existence.

It was childish to call it “the first” (i get over excited!) and it got me thinking – how is there really the world’s first anything? Everything we do leads on from something else, gradually evolving in a continuum.

Our music is influenced by beatbox culture, which originated from New York’s hip hop tradition. Before that, hip hop developed from many things, including funk, jazz, poetry and the new technology of the late 1970s. But earlier still, these genres were influenced by the blues, which in turn grew from African-American work songs, and it just keeps going back forever. It’s a giant family tree that grows constantly, spawning new genres, with no beginning and no end. Beatboxers have now taken these roots and created music that is influenced by cultures from all over the world, from punk and drum n bass, to opera and Mongolian throat singing.

But this is just one route that music has followed. Hundreds of years before all of this, similar vocal styles developed in other parts of the world. I can hardly believe the parallels between classical Indian vocal rhythms and beatboxing – they have so much in common despite following completely different paths, centuries apart.

So it is ridiculous for me to claim that I was the first to do anything. Everything you do derives from something else. It’s the music that matters the most – that’s what I’m all about really

Here are some other great vocal groups that pre-date the vocal orchestra.

Saian Supa Crew from France, back in 2000:

Nu Voices, run by the NYC beatboxer Kid Lucky:

Bauchklang – from Austra

Naturally 7 who are like an updated beatbox version of Boys II Men:

Here are some pics, and a video of the buildup to the concert we held at Southbank Centre, exploring the relationship between Indian vocal rhythms and beatboxing. Photos are by RJ Fernandez and the video is by Gemma Riggs.

Amazing artwork by Illustrator/spy Ellie Meredith

crossed cultures collaborate!

The kathak girls get into the beatboxing

Bellatrix and me with the Urban Vani kathak choir

Isha, 7, is one of my youngest students! She's a wicked beatboxer and stole the show

Gauri Sharma Tripathi with her amazing kathak dancers, they came over from India for the weekend

Gauri made me wear a traditional Indian costume!

Susheela Raman with her band. She has a spellbinding voice

Me and Susheela

Grand finale, take a bow!! what a show

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