Headrillaz
We are living in an era where everyone is talking about "electronica" but no one is actually defining the music itself. Techno, drum and bass, trip hop, ambient, big beat, hardstep, techstep, hardcore, happy hardcore, breaks, amyl house, gabba etc. Surely one cannot define all of these and all the hybrids and permutations as simple "electronica" There is but one binding element; all of them are made using electronic equipment - but so is hip hop, and most rock music for that matter. Yet certain types of beats are rearing their heads higher than most in dance music, especially in the UK, and this has recently been defined as big beat. A hard uptempo breakbeat with live rock, dub and electro sounds, big beat turns passive clubs into raging mobs on both the British dance and indie scene. Most big beat artists still just twiddle knobs on stage and jump up and down a bit. But none have compared to the live performance and sound of the hardest working band in breakbeat: Headrillaz.
London based brothers Casper and Darius Kedros, along with their step-brother Saul are Headrillaz, a trio of big beat barbarians with ten years previous experience in music making. Having thrashed about in many a hard guitar band, Casper and Darius moved on to release an LP in 1994 of solid, downbeat instrumental trip hop grooves overridden by samples of live musicians. This project was appropriately named Slowly and was released on Chill Out. From here they drifted into the world of weird beats and samples, working under the mammal guises of Tranquil Elephantizer and Trunk.
The Headrillaz tag first appeared as a remix credit on one of their experimental singles. It defined a hard pneumatic breakbeat sound which borrowed from a multitude of different music styles found in their record collections. The punk vibe of the Dead Kennedys and the Clash added the dark edge, dub reggae produced the power of the bass, the electronic sounds came from the machinery of techno and the energy of thrash transmuted into hard breakbeats.
Capable of causing the kind of extreme sonic damage that kids can only dream of, Headrillaz went soundsystem. London's Beat Weird at Jazz Bistro became the first event they turned into a bassbin. With fierce dubplates and DATs rattling the club heads, Spring 1996 is no doubt still ringing in some peopleís ears. Among those heads was Howie B., renowned producer and top cat at Pussyfoot Records. Howie really felt their sound insisted on releasing "Weird Planet/Hot 'n' Bovvud" as their first 12 inch on Pussyfoot.
Headrillaz released a further two singles on Pussyfoot, "Screaming Headz" and "Spacefunk". It was time for further development and the band decided to compile all their singles and some bonus tracks to produce Coldharbour Rocks as their debut album, a tribute to Brixton's Cold Harbour Lane, which lies at the center of the Headrillaz stomping ground in South London.
Not content with bursting speakers in clubs across the nation, Headrillaz have transformed their studio funk into a live band. Combining Steve on drums, Casper on synth (slung elegantly across his back and held together by duct tape), Darius on both bass and guitar and Saul on the mic the Drillaz have become the most sought after live band in breakbeat. The crowd loves it, pogoing with panache and making the floors of any venue erupt into an absolute frenzy not for the fainthearted.
It was in the spring of 1997, after a trip to New York, that the Headrillaz decided to release Coldharbour Rocks on Gee Street Records in the US. The band has been blowing up festivals (Tribal Gathering/Glastonbury) and clubs throughout the UK and the US 'Big Top' tour where America had a chance to witness the breaks, bass and hard funk of Headrillaz... proper big beat wobble.Admin
Tamju
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