 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
SUBSCRIBE
to |
 |
Enter
your email to get
our weekly newsletter: |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| K-rAd is Chris Grabowski and Mark Hardy. They live in Chicago at pAdK-rAd, an establishment housing their huge backlog of music and a tangle of computers, instruments, cables, records, an Atari 2600, and fishy. K-rAd are the illimitable and masticatory machine of high-lo-fi electronic music. Their video-game/late night re-run/hiphop-inspired beat driven electronics are fun and memorable and cool. Theirs is a music that effortlessly criss-crosses the grid of sub genres. Using computer software originally designed to score 16-bit video games for the Commodore 64 descended Amiga computers, K-rAd has blatantly shunned the non-human and sterile world of laptop IDM in favor of a more raw and real "electronica" where everything is from a line input only after the food processor and the blender set on washing machine. Their music (including the release "Deli Mood Spot" (SOPR 005)) is an amalgamation of news room techno, animated idm chases, late-night sitcom trip hop and Ben and Jerry's long-form ambience. Repressed jingles tickle you braincells as they pass through your stereo realm, teetering on the fence of (non)recognition. Their dark, funky music is inventive in that each track while having a crunchy spaced-out thread somehow has its own special place on any dance floor.
K-rAd has had an impressive list of credentials and accomplishments since their formation in July 1996. "Deli Mood Spot" was released in 2002 after the release of their first vinyl pressing "K1201-Textures for DJ's" and that isn't even saying anything about the countless mp3s that are available from their website (where it is possible to special order cdr's or download mp3s of your favorites and unreleased material). They have played countless shows mostly in the Chicago area at venues like the Empty Bottle, Smart Bar, Schuba's, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Big Wig, Karma with other acts such as TRS-80, Salvo Beta, DAT Politics, Digital Underground, Jah Wobble, Sutekh, and Hrvlatski. They have the distinction of garnering three critic's choices from the Chicago Reader and were featured in URB magazine as being one of the "top artists to watch" in 2003. They played the Winter Music Conference in Miami, Florida, sharing the stage with DJ Spooky, Soul Slinger, Danny the Wildchild, Alec Empire and DJ Q-Bert and have been featured on compilations such as Select, Tarpop, Lumptronica, the Salvo Beta Remix Project, and Illuminance Records. K-rAd have been featured by renowned artist James Patterson in his work as well as commissions from Burton Snowboards, General Motors, Nike, and VH1.
Aware that electronic music is meant to be heard and not seen, K-rAd sometimes set up their gear on the floor of the venue itself. This not only affords near invisibility but also allows them to hear the sound system as the audience does. The group's live performances involve taking previously sequenced tracks and reprogramming them on the fly where presequenced samples will be rearranged as well as new melodies and noise via another computer will be employed. The equalizer and volume levels are all constantly maintained. Other sounds and dollops of noise and other chewy marshmallow-filled surprises are being added to the mix with a turntable and various pedal effects. The fragmentation of electronic music in terms of the music industry is rampant in that all groups can be categorized in militantly homogenized subgroups-- techstep, jungle, speed garage, drill n bass, house, steppa, ad infinitum. This keeps like-minded musicians specifically segregated thwarting innovation and subverting sample-based music's ultimate promise of a reorganization of cultural and racial categories that renders them meaning something else than their hateful intentions. K-rAd realizes that great music is born of mongel roots and their music is radically astylistic. While elements of jungle, trip-hop, ambient, electro, funk, and orchestral music struggle to be heard over the din, none dominates the sound, making it a new listening experience every time. For more information, visit their website: http://www.pAdK-rAd.com
Got a correction? Click
Here
|
|
|
|
|
