BeatMyth: One Hand Clap

Slovenska spletna založba Kamizdat ponosno predstavlja tretji album projekta BeatMyth, katerega jedro tvori vsestranski producent Igor Vuk, v živo pa se mu pridružuje N’toko na mikrofonu. Album “One Hand Clap” predstavlja obogatitev in razširitev surovih elektro-punk ritmov in hitrih rim – ki jih že poznamo in pričakujemo od projekta BeatMyth – z igrivim pristopom k vzorčenju zvokov in strukturiranju nekaterih posameznih komadov. Album je tako široka in raznolika zgodba, ki sicer temelji na trdem elektro brejku, a ga hkrati večkrat postavi na stran in se posveti drugim zvočnim podrobnostim.

Myth: a sacred story, a set of beliefs, a way to make sense of the world, to connect the dots. A notion that is also the name of one of the first tracks made by BeatMyth (in 2007). It was one of many pieces in that raw and forward-thinking style, characteristic for the next half decade. But, the mythical narrative can be said to have started in Novo mesto, that town just halfway between Ljubljana and Zagreb. Exchanging the guitar and the amp with two turntables was the best deal ever. And there we also have the beginnings of the praised jazz-funk-rock group Moveknowledgment, and PlankTon’s turntables and records were part of it. Dance parties soon ensued at the local pub and the locals were going bat-shit-crazy, driven by the fast jump-up breakbeat science from the UK. It was all LTJ Bukem’s fault. And perhaps Fatboy Slim’s too.

After a few years in the urban setting of Ljubljana, there was more and more electronic music knowledge on the table. Igor and his flatmate Mitja Pritržnik were dabbling in writing and production, laying down some charged breakbeat tracks, inviting N’toko – PlankTon’s partner MC at many drum’n’bass gigs – for an ad-hoc recording session. And Mitja’s sister giveth the project the name. At the backdrop of that time were musical influences such as Adam Freeland and Hyper, gigs with the “Illegal crew”, a drum’n’bass crew on the rise, and production discussions with its chief MarkoMan. Lots of hours of tedious work behind the computer resulted in BeatMyth’s debut: “Your Own Two Heads”, an industrial electro-punk collection of bangers.

In the poetics of this work, one can sense the history of personal musical growth: the beginnings in doom metal and the sense of immediacy of jump-up and harder strains of drum’n’bass. Active as a DJ in the last decade, PlankTon moved exceedingly firmly into the contemporary breakbeat scene, very much in line with what can be found on BeatMyth’s first two albums. However, proper appreciation of this project is not possible without taking into account the live performance of PlankTon and N’toko, who have until now always presented BeatMyth in an outgoing onslaught of beats, basslines, synth-stabs, and fast vocal ranting, animating many a sleepy auditorium into something akin to a small riot. And to furthermore bring the tentacles of this project’s context to light, it must be said that at the core of the project stands a multiskilled producer and audio engineer, whose areas of work go beyond mere clicking around his DAW: robotics workshops for kids, technical support for art installations, analogue synthesizer repairs, audio studio building, mastering and mixing a variety of different projects, and live sound.

And finally, this, the third album maturely brings up musical material created through a different approach, a different attitude, and mixes it up with that signature outgoing electro-punk vibe of the previous two albums. This attitude is purposefully playful. It’s a move away from the dance floor, away from the dictate of the live spectacle into an exploration of sound-based sample-heavy trickery. Still, it by no means represents an abandonment of the basic, ever-present principle, the pillar of this sound: firm musical decisiveness and a never-ending search for dynamics in balance.

Sodelavci

produkcija, snemanje, aranžma, miks in mastering: Igor Vuk a.k.a. BeatMyth
koprodukcija: Boštjan Pirnar (2, 7, 11)
vokali: N’toko (1, 8, 10) in Nova deViator (4)

besedilo: Luka Prinčič
oblikovanje: Tina Ivezić
naslovna fotografija: www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/
foto (knjižica): (p.1, p.4) www.pixabay.com, (p.2) www.flickr.com/photos/derpoly/, Nejc Ketiš (p.11), Sebastijan Iskra (p.13), Simon Šturm (p.15)

knjigoveštvo: Maruša ‘MARUJI’ Hren
tisk: Janja Baznik, ‘Pri Tiskarskem Škratu’

fotografije izdelka: Nada Žgank, www.mementoimage.com

Posebne zahvale

BeatMyth se zahvaljuje: Miha Blažič aka N’toko, Boštjan Pirnar, Luka Prinčič, Simon Šturm, Gregor Zemljič, Mitja Pritržnik, Petra Pritržnik, Izak Cunta, Ana Marija Prelogar

Prenos in nakup

Prosti prisluh in prenos (plačaj kolikor hočeš) in posebne omejene edicije USB knjižic so na voljo preko kamizdat.bandcamp.com.

Ustvarjeno in objavljeno pod Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licenco ([Priznanje avtorstva-Nekomercialno-Deljenje pod enakimi pogoji] – Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) www.creativecommons.com/licence

Podpora

Medijska podpora: Radio Študent Ljubljana
Finančna podpora: Mestna občina Ljubljana, Ministrstvo za kulturo RS

kat: KAM024 | 2017 Emanat | izšlo 4. maja 2017

Medijski odzivi

“In prav detajli so tisto, česar pri novi plati projekta BeatMyth ne manjka in s čimer izstopa iz preseka trenutne brejkerske ponudbe. Ogromno je komaj slišnih ritmičnih miniatur in raznih tehničnih fintic ter domislic, ki glavnino dodobra pretresejo. Če je osnova dokaj rigiden žanr, ki se v zadnjih petnajstih letih ni ključno spreminjal, pa prekletstvo forme Vuk pričakovano (je namreč vešč studijski mojster in zvočni inženir) premaga tako z zavidljivo tehnično iznajdljivostjo in znanjem kot z idejami, ki niso nujno vezane na klubske podije. Da ne bo pomote, One Hand Clap je v prvi vrsti plesni album, album ki najbolje zveni na klubskem zvočnem sistemu, ki je namenjen klubski porabi in na katerem prevladujejo eksplicitne »drmalice«. A Vukove ideje niso zgolj sužnje ritma, vprašanje, »ali bi to delalo na plesišču«, pa ne paradigma, nikakor ne rigidno in slepo vodilo projekta. One Hand Clap je v svoji podstati žanrski, izrazito brejkerski plošček. Je energično klubski, a hkrati dovolj igriv, da ne gre zgolj za suhoparno pragmatičen izdelek, funkcionalno zbirko plesnih kosov, namenjenih predvsem klubskim vrtljajem. Niti ni preračunljiv kupček skupaj nametanih klubskih singlic. Plošči One Hand Clap lahko torej zaploskamo, in to z obema rokama, saj v kategorijo žanrskega plesnega albuma vnaša prepotreben odklon od norme. Ne boji se vpeljati manj vsakdanjih idej, nepričakovanih obratov in ekskurzij v manj znane kotičke. In vse to dobimo v tehnično brezhibnem paketu.”
15.05.2017, ODZVEN, Enoročno ploskanje beatov, Borja Močnik

“Tako pa pridemo tudi do širše kvalitete novega izdelka, ki jasneje uzira generične žanrske in zvočne nastavke (tako bi morda lahko brali tudi sam naslov plošče – One Hand Clap), jih prime za hrbtenico in nekoliko razrahlja zaporedje pravih vretenc, kar nato izkoristi kot izhodišče za manj formulaično, prej zvočno kot žanrsko rekontekstualizacijo, ki hkrati obdrži dinamiko in prožnost značilne nepogrešljive boben in bas strukture elektro brejka ter obenem vzpostavi zvočno ter zvočno-aranžmajsko polje intrige in raziskovanja, s katerim se Beatmyth pokaže v nedvomno najlepši luči doslej. Nova plošča je lahko zanimiva tudi žanru neposvečenemu poslušalcu, kar je za takšno zvokovje morda že kar netipično. Rezultat so zanimive nepredvidljivosti in stalno premeščanje pozornosti znotraj linearnega žanrsko generičnega zvočnega narativa, ki lahko izstopi tudi precej daleč iz udobja formulaike in vzpostavi popolnoma nove perspektive za uziranje brejka…”
03.05.2017, Radio Študent, Tolpa bumov: BeatMyth: One Hand Clap, Žiga Pucelj

02.05.2017, 100 decibelov, Radio Študent, Andrej Pervanje
30.05.2018, Druga godba – sobota, Radio Študent, Damjan Manevski, Žiga Pucelj, Staš Vrenko, Nina Hlebec