 |
  |
Birdy Nam Nam, the turntablist quartet
DJ foursome serve up album no.2
Paris
15/01/2009 -
Crazy B, Pone, Need and Little Mike - the four DJs who make up Birdy Nam Nam - have evolved on stage in recent times, taking their work in a more electronic direction. While the foursome have not abandoned their cherished turntables, they have taken to playing and composing digitally now. The group’s second album, Manual For Successful Rioting, reflects Birdy Nam Nam’s wild and unfettered sound live on stage, sweeping across genres and eras as they push turntablism to artistic extremes.
Birdy Nam's Nam's eponymous debut album started out as a self-imposed challenge, a far-fetched DJ bet to find out whether it was possible to create an entire album using nothing but their turntables and their collective collection of LPs. The foursome's first album did not feature the sound of a single real instrument, Pone pounding out a bass line on his turntable, for instance, while one of his colleagues "played" keyboards with a vinyl LP. Birdy Nam Nam's amazing technical virtuosity is (at least partly) inspired by the fact that none of the foursome can actually play an instrument.
"I always got zero in music when I was at school," explains Crazy B, "So creating music via our turntables was not so much a challenge as the only obvious way we could function. Having said that, however, we have absolutely no intention of ever making an album like that again!" The foursome's debut album, released in 2005, took six intensive months in the studio, Crazy B, Pone, Need and Little Mike locking themselves away in the studio to spin their LPs and then embark upon a painstaking, artisanal process of cutting, re-cutting, filtering, scratching and looping without the aid of a single machine.
The four DJs all made their individual names showing off their turntable dexterity at international competitions which, in the late '90s, were a sort of sacred "high mass" for hip-hop fans. At these competitions, all four were used to scratching "prehistoric" hip-hop (think Afrika Bambaataa, Cybotron and other ‘old school’ names who made no distinction between the worlds of rap and electronica). The four friends - who, in a bid to break with pretentious DJ pseudonyms, invented a nonsensical name apparently inspired by a line in a Peter Sellers movie - have obviously been listening to a lot of hip-hop records alongside jazz and soul. And their early influences have surfaced on the group's second album, Manual For Successful Rioting.
From competitions to concerts
"Back in a competition in 2000, we were already scratching percussion that sounded like a Brazilian batacuda," explains DJ Pone. "We thought it sounded really original, but we ended up coming fourth despite all that. We were really pissed off," laughs Crazy B. "We were working in the spirit of turntablists, even back then, and trying hard to do something other than simple scratch. But the problem was we hadn't done any concerts at that point. We'd only shown off our turntable skills as DJs," Need chimes in. Interestingly enough, Birdy Nam Nam's success came via the live circuit. The foursome wasted no time in going on to pack out medium-size venues and they also started appearing at well-known festivals such as Sonar and Rocksilde. By the start of 2009, Birdy Nam Nam had clocked up almost 200 shows.
By the time the foursome got round to recording their second album, a mini-revolution had taken place in technology. These days, using the latest in turntables linked to computer software, the four DJs can mix digital music files the way they used to spin vinyl LPs. Birdy Nam Nam officially went digital in 2007. DJ Pone admits that "Fans might have a lot less to watch on stage now, but they're hearing a lot more, and that's what counts! These days, we have the possibility of doing ten times more things with our sound. But we'll never abandon our turntables - they've always been the link between the four of us!" Watching Birdy Nam Nam live on stage these days, one has the clear impression that they are a real group now with each "musician" playing his role. There are still no signs of actual drums or guitar, though, much to the confusion of some members of the audience (who often require a few words of explanation before the start of a show).
Yuksek & Justice
Fans who have enjoyed Crazy B's work with Raggasonic, Mike's recent collaboration with Jérémy Chatelain or DJ Pone's experimentation with Les Svinkels may find themselves bemused by the radical new electro direction on Birdy Nam Nam's second album. "When we play live on stage," explains Mike, "I think our evolution has been logical for all those who've followed us as a group. Some people told us they'd been disappointed listening to our first album after having seen us live. This time round, with the second album, we've tried to capture the spark and on-stage energy of our concerts."
Birdy Nam Nam certainly recruited a crack team to record their second album, enlisting the services of Yuksek, a cutting-edge producer from Reims, to boost their beats. Manual For Successful Rioting also features guest contributions from French duo Bumcello (on cello and percussion), dance music stars Justice (on keyboards) and Philippe Miró (on guitar). This second album proves, without a shadow of a doubt, that Birdy Nam Nam are not just a bunch of talented DJs, but now a cohesive group in their own right.
Birdy Nam Nam are currently on tour in France
Nicolas Dambre
Translation : Julie Street
