21/11 Glasgow FORTIFIED with THE MOODY BOYZ & DYNAMIX
Posted: Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:28 pm
Now we've got the madness of the birthday out the way, its back into the more familiar environs of the vic bar next month, where we will be joined by our good friend Dynamix, promoter and resident of Newcastle's only regular dubstep night, Heavyweight, and dub pioneer and underground musical legend Tony Thorpe aka The Moody Boyz. Bass Warrior provides the oomph in the system once again.
Hers Tony's Bio for yas.
www.myspace.com/themoodyboyz
Best known for his groundbreaking Moody Boyz output, Tony Thorpe has been surfing the contours of echo drop dub since he first started fusing tape looped noise with earthbound funk as 400 Blows over 20 years ago.
In 1987 he released the first UK acid compilation Acid Beats and soon after launched his acid guise Moody Boyz with the funk-fried 'Boogie Woogie Music' on his second acid house compilation Acid House Volume One. Moody Boyz released a series of groundbreaking house cuts from the B-Boy-meets-techno top 50 hit 'Acid Heaven/ Acid Rappin' to the groundbreaking LFO bass attack of 'Funky Zulu'. But it was 'Journeys into Dubland' that became Thorpe's defining moment thanks to its fusion of acid house, reggae, dissonant noise-scapes and a heavy dose of dub medicine.
In the meantime Thorpe developed a creative partnership with KLF which stretched back to their incarnation as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu when a 400 Blows remix of 'Don't Take Five' was rejected. Instead he became KLF's 'Breaks, beats and samples' controller, and remixed both the debut cut of '3am Eternal' and the follow up chart topping version for which Thorpe was given full publishing – despite it being a remix.
Thorpe's KLF work included 'What Time is Love?' 'Last Train to Transcentral' and best selling album The White Room. But he also continued to massage the dance underground with Moody Boyz singles 'Lion Dance' (featuring a remix by Frankie Bones) and 'What is Dub?' (with, Jamaican MC Screamer – pre-empting the Ragga Jungle fusion in the process). 'Centre of the World' and 'Playing with Spears' followed in 1992, the same year that Thorpe launched proto-jungle classic 'Bad Man' by Urban Jungle, followed a year later by the progressive dub house 'Transmission' EP as Voyager.
The 1994 Moody Boyz/ The Black Dog collaboration single 'Shango' (on the seminal Guerrilla label) previewed Thorpe's stunning debut Moody Boyz album Product of the Environment and remix EP 'Recycled'. Moody Boyz, it would seem, had truly arrived as a global player… and then the label went belly up leaving Product of the Environment as one of the great lost albums of the late twentieth century.
Undeterred Thorpe teamed up with Belgium imprint Crammed Discs to release a reworking of 'Destination Africa' from that lost album. A year later in 1995 a full set of uncompromising remixes called Recycled for the Environment coincided with his new record label Language, which specialised in genre defying sounds from electronic music's outer edges courtesy of artists like Si Begg (Buckfunk 3000), Circadian Rhythms (aka This Heat's Charles Bullen) and renowned drum'n'bass artist Endemic Void.
In 1998/99 he released a series of pounding, dissonant, sub-bass stunners under the name Wayward Soul including a stunning collaboration with Divine Styler called 'PMT'. The album that followed in 2000, Brother from Another Planet found Thorpe stretching ever deeper into the darkest recesses of breaks driven dubland.
Tony Thorpe is one of British music's true mavericks. His groundbreaking approach has laid the way for numerous artists to follow and succeed while he has all too often been ignored. Now with his dub armoury fully at the controls his time has surely come. Indeed, The Moody Boyz' recent output brings Thorpe's journey full circle with its brilliant dubsonics, echodrop madness, smoke fuelled ghosts and half remembered thoughts. With recent remixes for Roots Manuva, Lee Perry and Amy Winehouse, this is surely time for the world to recognise Tony Thorpe – the original dubstep pioneer.
Hers Tony's Bio for yas.
www.myspace.com/themoodyboyz
Best known for his groundbreaking Moody Boyz output, Tony Thorpe has been surfing the contours of echo drop dub since he first started fusing tape looped noise with earthbound funk as 400 Blows over 20 years ago.
In 1987 he released the first UK acid compilation Acid Beats and soon after launched his acid guise Moody Boyz with the funk-fried 'Boogie Woogie Music' on his second acid house compilation Acid House Volume One. Moody Boyz released a series of groundbreaking house cuts from the B-Boy-meets-techno top 50 hit 'Acid Heaven/ Acid Rappin' to the groundbreaking LFO bass attack of 'Funky Zulu'. But it was 'Journeys into Dubland' that became Thorpe's defining moment thanks to its fusion of acid house, reggae, dissonant noise-scapes and a heavy dose of dub medicine.
In the meantime Thorpe developed a creative partnership with KLF which stretched back to their incarnation as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu when a 400 Blows remix of 'Don't Take Five' was rejected. Instead he became KLF's 'Breaks, beats and samples' controller, and remixed both the debut cut of '3am Eternal' and the follow up chart topping version for which Thorpe was given full publishing – despite it being a remix.
Thorpe's KLF work included 'What Time is Love?' 'Last Train to Transcentral' and best selling album The White Room. But he also continued to massage the dance underground with Moody Boyz singles 'Lion Dance' (featuring a remix by Frankie Bones) and 'What is Dub?' (with, Jamaican MC Screamer – pre-empting the Ragga Jungle fusion in the process). 'Centre of the World' and 'Playing with Spears' followed in 1992, the same year that Thorpe launched proto-jungle classic 'Bad Man' by Urban Jungle, followed a year later by the progressive dub house 'Transmission' EP as Voyager.
The 1994 Moody Boyz/ The Black Dog collaboration single 'Shango' (on the seminal Guerrilla label) previewed Thorpe's stunning debut Moody Boyz album Product of the Environment and remix EP 'Recycled'. Moody Boyz, it would seem, had truly arrived as a global player… and then the label went belly up leaving Product of the Environment as one of the great lost albums of the late twentieth century.
Undeterred Thorpe teamed up with Belgium imprint Crammed Discs to release a reworking of 'Destination Africa' from that lost album. A year later in 1995 a full set of uncompromising remixes called Recycled for the Environment coincided with his new record label Language, which specialised in genre defying sounds from electronic music's outer edges courtesy of artists like Si Begg (Buckfunk 3000), Circadian Rhythms (aka This Heat's Charles Bullen) and renowned drum'n'bass artist Endemic Void.
In 1998/99 he released a series of pounding, dissonant, sub-bass stunners under the name Wayward Soul including a stunning collaboration with Divine Styler called 'PMT'. The album that followed in 2000, Brother from Another Planet found Thorpe stretching ever deeper into the darkest recesses of breaks driven dubland.
Tony Thorpe is one of British music's true mavericks. His groundbreaking approach has laid the way for numerous artists to follow and succeed while he has all too often been ignored. Now with his dub armoury fully at the controls his time has surely come. Indeed, The Moody Boyz' recent output brings Thorpe's journey full circle with its brilliant dubsonics, echodrop madness, smoke fuelled ghosts and half remembered thoughts. With recent remixes for Roots Manuva, Lee Perry and Amy Winehouse, this is surely time for the world to recognise Tony Thorpe – the original dubstep pioneer.
