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Mixed by 2 Bears, 1 Love - Mixed Album.
2 Bears, 1 Love: How music with flaws can be preferable to perfection
Raf Daddy and Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard put the fun back into the beat
Following an acclaimed debut artist album earlier in the year and sell-out, crowd-surging gigs at the summer’s major festivals, The 2 Bears have sharpened their claws and groomed their fur in anticipation of their latest project, 2 Bears 1 Love.
Born out of a mutual love of house, soundsystem culture and jerk chicken, 2 Bears 1 Love is a Caribbean-flecked mix of brash beats and dutty rhythms, overlaid with Raf’s inimitable gruff vocals. Featuring great hairy pawfuls of original The 2 Bears tracks and remixes, the compilation also includes an eclectic selection of tracks from Toddla T, Crowdpleaser, Metro Area, Kim English, Paperclip People and Ossie, as well as an exclusive new remix of their own Birds & The Bees from X-Press 2.
The 2 Bears are Raf Daddy and Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, two friends who decided to start making music after meeting through a party scene that saw them share deck duties at the legendary Greco-Roman parties. Their first forays in the studio produced both the sublime and the ridiculous, the results of which was their debut album Be Strong – a record that was lauded from everyone to The Guardian and GQ to Q Magazine and Mixmag.
Watch Bear Love: Stage Invasion at Lovebox 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBUCUa4cqhc
The music The 2 Bears create and champion is the antithesis of the current wave of soulless, pitch-perfect EDM currently being championed across the pond in the US, although it’s something that Raf admits has its own charm. “Not that we set out to make records as a reaction to that,” he says “we just make the music that we like.” For Raf and Joe, it’s about bringing together different cultures and ideas about music and creating something that may be a little rough around the edges, but comes from an undoubtedly positive place. “There’s something beautiful about the natural flaws you find in music” finished Joe. “For us, keeping a little bit of humanity is really essential.”
2 Bears, 1 Love is the first time either of them has tried their hand at the age-old mix compilation format, and the results are unsurprisingly unpredictable. "We wanted to try and make the mixes a bit different" says Raf of the project. "We didn’t want it to be just two hours of banging club tracks."
"It's nice when a mix CD becomes an experience that can work at different times and with different people" continues Joe. “You want it to be something that people listen to for quite a period of time. That was something we were talking about, to make a mix that becomes part of someone’s life and stays with them.” The album’s artwork too, has been carefully considered, hand-drawn by Bear-designer and illustrator friend Ed Grace (a rarity in these digitally-dominated days) and described by Raf as “...ravers, ghosts, a vampire, a bearded lady and an octopus in the background doing a dance; it's an homage to those brilliant Scientist sleeves from the early 80s."
As a result of the thought put into them, the two mixes sound more like a joyride through a life spent digging around in dusty old record shops than a straight-up mix, with gyrating dancehall cuts happily rubbing shoulders with chunky, old school house and the Bear’s own inimitable take on the genre.
CD1 is undoubtedly a London thing, the influence of the multi-cultural capital shining through in the musical selections. "We’ve tried to represent a bit of what we’re about and a bit of the sort of place we come from as DJs" say Raf. "We both have different musical backgrounds which make for a pretty interesting selection." Things take a housier but no less diverse turn on CD2, with a bouncin’ selection of beats that represent Raf and Joe’s exhaustive knowledge of house music. "I played one of these discs to my friend the other day and he was like “Argh! You’ve got Paperclip People – Throw on there." That’s the reaction we're after, tunes that mean something to people.”
2 Bears, 1 Love is out 8th October on 2CD and download
Label: Defected
Les CDs peuvent être commandé directement sur le site
[http://www.cede.ch]
ou sur le site [http://www.directmedia.ch].
Les plaques peuvent être commandée directement sur
le site [http://www.vinylnews.ch]
ou [http://www.webrecords.com].
Cet enregistrement à été publié
le 17.08.2012 par sven.
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