Busdriver

Q&A: Busdriver

Busdriver: Beaus$ErosBusdriver: Beaus$Eros (Fake Four, 2/21/12)

Busdriver: “Kiss Me Back to Life”

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Rapping since age 9, LA art rapper Busdriver (born Regan John Farquhar) has had nearly a quarter century to develop his distinct style and lightning-fast delivery. He’s been known to break rules and defy hip-hop conventions, but his latest release, Beaus$Eros, is perhaps his strangest yet — a blend of beats and avant-garde pop.

Centered on both personal and professional failure, Beaus$Eros (“bows and arrows”) is more emotionally intense than the socially conscious rap he has produced for years, and it comes across in his strange, sweeping croons that come to the fore on this record. Delivered with Belgian producer Loden’s epic, pulsing beats, the result is unlike anything we’ve heard from him before — and it’s undeniably catchy.

“Kiss Me Back to Life” almost entirely forgoes hip hop as a hook-filled offering for the dance floor. But if you’re searching for the Busdriver that you know and love, you still have a bit in “NoBlacksNoJewsNoAsians,” where he spews cryptic, politically charged lyrics with his signature auctioneer-like delivery.

ALARM recently caught up with Busdriver to discuss the new direction as well as the trials that have come with releasing Beaus$Eros.

Moses Supposes

Moses Supposes: NAMM Slam 2012 — Can 92,000 be wrong?

Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com.

Generally, NAMM is described by me as a 100,000-square-foot Guitar Center with about 70,000 people playing “Stairway to Heaven.”

Not this year. Aside from a record-breaking 92,000 attendees, NAMM has grown with the times, expanding from mere trade show to conference, power broker meet-‘n’-greet.

Castratii

Castratii: Dream (Pop) in the Dark

This story first appeared in Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music. Order your copy today.

Castratii: Telling of the BeesCastratii: Telling of the Bees (Speak ‘n’ Spell, 7/3/10)

Castratii: “Orchid”

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Cloaked in darkness, the Australian electro-ambient trio known as Castratii exerts a mysterious gravitational pull. Together, “spiritual brothers” Beauvais Cassidy and Jonathan Wilson — along with new addition Liela Moss — create an ethereal, otherworldly sound. For the group, darkness is the antithesis of information overload caused by technology. “People are definitely more interested in not knowing right now, particularly as everything is so easily found online,” Wilson says. And for many fans, Castratii’s allure lies in its mysterious movements; by revealing little, the band invites speculation.

Based in rural New South Wales, an hour and a half outside Sydney, Castratii draws inspiration from the untamed environment of the deep, dark bush. “Australia is beautiful and haunted and scary as fuck, and we want our music to be its soundtrack,” Wilson says. The band formed in 2007, when Cassidy and Wilson, both 30, were going through personal crises. “The project was born from sheer desperation and our limits being tested,” Wilson explains. One was physically ill and the other lost and confused. “We found each other in this sound,” he continues. “It was something we had to do to find a way out of the depths.”

Cassidy and Wilson’s first gigs were performances for friends in their lodge. Surrounded by spooky yet comforting sounds of night animals and insects, the band felt at home. “The remote nature of the space, and given [that] ideas appear when light is limited, it made sense for us to play completely in the dark,” Wilson says. “It was like playing to the things that had inspired the music in the first place.”