L.A. producer Thavius Beck is back with Dialogue, a new set of dissonances and noise experiments. Oddly, it comes out in the UK and Europe next week (October 5) via Big Dada; however, Mush Records does not have a domestic release date yet. I’ll let you know when that changes.
(October 29 update: The U.S. release date for CD/vinyl is January 26, 2010. However, it is already available on iTunes and other digital retailers.)
In the meantime, here’s some insight from the Big Dada website:
Beck spent 2007 contributing production work on Saul Williams’ Niggy Tardust full-length with Trent Reznor. In 2008, he entered the studio with new LA resident K-The-I???, producing K’s entire full-length Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow. …
Between studio sessions, Beck was taking to the road, traveling Europe and the United States as both artist and DJ. His superb live hip-hop beat construction has earned him much recognition among the electronic music community, eventually leading to sponsorships from M-Audio and Ableton, the creators of ubiquitous beat software, Live. Beck’s relationship with Live has grown to the point that his tour stops often include him booking Ableton Live instructional workshops in many of the cities he stops in.
In late 2008, Beck wrapped up recording his latest solo full-length, titled Dialogue. Unlike previous efforts, which have featured appearances from Saul Williams, Cedric Bixler-Zavala (The Mars Volta), Subtitle, and many more, the only voice on Dialogue is Beck’s own. Across fifteen tracks, including two instrumentals, Thavius cleverly critiques many of America’s ills with a dry, satirical wit that never falls into preachiness. “I think an MC should be able to draw on their life experiences and translate them into meaningful songs, maybe even grow a bit after reflecting on it during the song writing process. The writing and recording of Dialogue was a very therapeutic process for me for those very reasons: I took what I was going through in my life and put it on paper; I released my demons and let them dance over my beats.”
Sonically, the album reaches new heights for Beck. Taking months to mix, Dialogue is Beck’s biggest sounding album to date. Every track bleeds immediacy with warm bass kicks and aggressive highs that sound something like if the Bomb Squad had called Miami home. On his production influences, Beck notes: “I really like prog-rock, weird jazz/rock fusion hybrids, heavy metal, industrial stuff, etc., but I also like soul and funk, older hip hop, grime, some roots reggae. There was an earlier period when I was really influenced by drum-n-bass, and the more pretentiously named Intelligent Dance Music.”
For fans of iconoclastic music of any stripe, Thavius Beck presents Dialogue, and proves that the only musical boundaries he sees are ones he has already left behind.
Here’s the track listing:
- 1. “Intro/Cracking The Shell”
- 2. “Away”
- 3. “Go!”
- 4. “Money”
- 5. “Violence”
- 6. “Burn”
- 7. “And The Beat Goes On”
- 8. “Painful”
- 9. “Hardcore”
- 10. “IDC”
- 11. “Sheepish”
- 12. “Transmission”
- 13. “Sometimes”
- 14. “Pressure”
- 15. “4 Part 2”
