Author: CJB
Date: 06-18-01 19:05
HYBRID
Mike Truman, Chris Healings and Lee Mullins are Hybrid, a Swansea-based collective with designs on the future of music. Their debut album, "Wide Angle", will surprise anyone who thinks that dance music can't be clever, challenging and musically astute. Here's the shocking news: You might want to listen to it for longer than a few weeks. You don't have to be standing up to listen to it.
Truman, Healings and Mullins met while clubbing in Swansea seven years ago. They bonded over Truman's house remix of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall", and they've been doing DJ sets and mixing their own music ever since. They have become sought-after remixers, putting their production skills to use on tracks for artists as varied as Jazzy Jeff, Carl Cox and Alanis Morissette.
Working the DJ circuit has allowed the Hybrid boys to immerse themselves in a broad range of musical styles. "You draw all these influences in, and use them to create new sounds," explains Truman. Wide Angle betrays the influences of John Barry, Stevie Wonder, Eartha Kitt, Berlin techno, Peter Gabriel and Claude Debussy. "Everything that we've listened to over the years has been absorbed and used in some way," he reflects.
Hybrid's multi-album deal with Distinct'ive Records has allowed them the security to formulate long-term plans. They are developing their live act, and have already gone down a storm in venues as far apart as Miami and Liverpool. They've just been signed for a gig on top of Mount Fuji. With their first album, Wide Angle, released last year to critical acclaim, the band are now doing the groundwork for their next album.
And with tastes and skills as eclectic as Hybrid's, there's plenty of scope for the wildest kind of experimentation. They're making noises about an unplugged breakbeat album, and suite of music in which the melodic instruments play the beat, and the percussion instruments play the melody. Whatever their next move, expect to be surprised.
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