RhoDeo 2017 Grooves

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Today's Artists are Hull-based duo Fila Brazillia is the most popular and acclaimed of the noted Pork Recordings stable. Formed in 1990 by producers Steve Cobby and Dave McSherry, Fila followed Cobby's association with Ashley & Jackson, a moderately successful pop/dance group signed to Big Life! that went belly up as the label began demanding more and more pop and less dance. Returning to his native Hull from Manchester, Cobby met DJ/dabbler Dave Pork, and the two forged a creative alliance. Hooking up with McSherry to form Fila, the group's first 12", "The Mermaid," was released that same year on Pork's fledgling imprint (formed, actually, specifically for the occasion), gaining instant acclaim among DJs and headphonauts alike for its innovative fusion of funk, dub, house, hip-hop, and acid jazz.........N Joy

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Fila Brazillia followed their debut single with a string of full-length releases (Old Codes, New Chaos, Maim That Tune, and Black Market Gardening among them), which were instrumental in building Pork's reputation as one of the most consistent and respected of England's vast ocean of underground breakbeat/trip-hop labels. Later releases integrated elements of pop and drum'n'bass on a number of tracks. Fila's rep also translated into a number of acclaimed remixes, including Lamb's "Cotton Wool," the Orb's "Toxygene," and DJ Food's "Freedom" (over a dozen of which were featured on the 2000 collection Brazilification). During the new millennium, the duo released the mix album Another Late Night in 2001 and the studio effort Jump Leads early the following year. After two years of recording inactivity, in 2004 the duo released a pair of production albums (The Life and Times of Phoebus Brumal and Dicks), plus another mix album (Another Fine Mess). In addition to Fila, Cobby is also an active member of other Pork stable acts such as Solid Doctor (his solo guise) and Heights of Abraham, both of which have released a number of full-length recordings.

Their early albums were released on Pork Recordings, also based in Hull: Old Codes New Chaos, Maim That Tune, Mess, Black Market Gardening, Luck Be a Weirdo Tonight and Power Clown. After creating their own music label with Sim Lister, Twentythree Records, they released further albums A Touch of Cloth, Jump Leads, The Life And Times of Phoebus Brumal, Dicks and Retrospective. They have also released two DJ mix albums, Another Late Night: Fila Brazillia, for Azuli Records' "Another Late Night" series, and Another Fine Mess: Fila Brazillia, and two collections of remixes: Brazilification and B2.

Their collaborations include working with Harold Budd and Bill Nelson to release Three White Roses & A Budd (Twentythree Records, 2002). They co-produced the first Twilight Singers LP Twilight as Played by The Twilight Singers with Greg Dulli in 2001. Cobby and McSherry have produced more than 70 remixes for artists including Black Uhuru, Busta Rhymes, DJ Food, Lamb, Radiohead and The Orb. Bill Hicks, the controversial American stand-up comedian, satirist and social critic, "appears" on Fila Brazillia's album Maim That Tune (1996) and the album is dedicated to Hicks.

Their music has made its mark both on small-screen blockbusters (such as CSI and Sex and the City) and cult cinema films such as Dogtown and Z-Boys, Riding Giants and Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos, a 2006 documentary about the New York Cosmos soccer team. One of their better-known songs, A Zed and two L's, appears on Jam, a black comedy sketch show by British satirist Chris Morris. Their song "Here Comes Pissy Willy" from the Power Clown album featured as the theme to the James Whale Show on Talk Radio in the late 1990s.

After releasing their Retrospective album in 2006, Cobby and McSherry quietly ended their longtime partnership. Currently, McSherry is a lecturer in Audio Production at the University of Lincoln.

Cobby went on in late 2006 to form Steel Tiger Records with Sim Lister. Over the course of 2007, the label saw various digital releases by J*S*T*A*R*S (Cobby and Lister), Peacecorps (Cobby and guitarist Rich Arthurs) and by The Cutler (Cobby and ex-head of Pork Recordings David "Porky" Brennand). The first formal album by The Cutler on Steel Tiger Records was released on 7 July 2008, and the most recent "Everything Is Touching Everything Else" (Steel Tiger Records ST016, 10 June 2013) – with vocals by Isobel Helen, Archie Heselwood, Andrew Taylor and Little Glitches – distributed by Kudos Records Ltd.

In 2013 Steve Cobby provided the soundtrack for the Hull 'UK City of Culture 2017' bid film - 'This City Belongs to Everyone', produced by Nova Studios - on 20 November 2013 Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, was announced as the winning City, and so as UK City of Culture 2017.

After a 16 year hiatus, on 6 March 2020, the band returned with the release of the MMXX EP.


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Fila Brazillia's debut album established many of the band's ingredients: warped structures building to mild climaxes, a need to explore the absurd end of chill-out without relying on comical extremes, paranoid sample-based polemics working as unified LP concepts, and a host of dance psychotropics waiting in the fringes ready to take everything over the edge. Old Codes, New Chaos may sound restrained compared to the creditable but not always successful moments of band's later eccentricity, but there's also a clean and bracing straightforwardness to its awkward downtempo that was often lacking in the band's slow development. Along with much of its back catalog, Fila Brazillia reissued the 1994 album on its own label, Twentythree, in the middle of 2001, not soon after the release of the band's style-shattering Another Late Night mix effort. The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld reloaded. Sure, it is more funkier and focused and with some pretty good samples ("The Light of Jesus"), but aside some "themes" that will remain landmarks of Fila Brazillia, this album doesn't tell much of the potential that will be used from Maim That Tune onwards.

Fila Brazillia - Old Codes, New Chaos (flac   439mb)

01 Old Codes 1:17
02 Mermaids 6:16
03 Whose Money 2:03
04 Brazilification 8:40
05 Serratia Marcescens 3:56
06 The Sheriff 9:14
07 Feinman 1:16
08 The Light of Jesus 8:41
09 Strange Thoughts 5:26
10 Fila Funk 18:53
11 Pots & Pans 9:20
12 New Chaos 1:45

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Maim That Tune, the second album from the Fila Brazillia boys, has all the properties that you would expect (and hope for!). “A Zed and Two L’s” is a bass-laden jam that switches tempo towards the end, but is complemented throughout by African chanting. “At Home in Space” glides by on a flute, moving through various stages. That is exactly what’s so great about Fila Brazillia -- instead of endless noodling, their tracks have an actual shape and move according. Sure, they indulge themselves occasionally, but, for the most part, they’re tight. “Slacker” goes back into house mode, while “Extract of Pineal Gland” has jazzed-up piano chords all throughout. “Subtle Body” closes the album on a simple and beatless note. Outstanding.

  Fila Brazillia - Maim That Tune    (flac   370mb)

01  Dave Yang and Steve Yin De Swish T'swish 6:43
2 A Zed and Two L's 9:26
3 Leggy 6:41
4 At Home in Space 10:29
5 6ft Wasp 9:26
6 Slacker 11:11
7 Harmonicas Are Shite 6:31
8 Extract of Pineal Gland 7:15
9 Subtle Body 9:04

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Mess is an intriguing album. Those listeners fortunate enough to possess a rather dense jazz collection might find a number of their favorite bits here--albeit mutated, twisted, and wrinkled beyond recognition. In effect, Cobby and McSherry blast the hell outta the Blue Note catalog, reinventing '70s fusion along the way. Check out the Horace Silver electrofunk of "Big Saddle," for starters--big beat before the beats begged out. And then there's the Fila wit that drips out between the cracks of such tracks as "Wavy Gravy," with its sampled blurb name-checking Charles Manson over somersaulting percussion, wheezing synths, and some nut in the background sucking air through a pennywhistle. A big smile spreads over the face...

Groove and atmosphere. Two things Fila Brazillia excelled at, when at their peak. And ‘Mess’, their third album, truly represents their peak, coming after two albums (‘Old Codes New Chaos’ and ‘Maim That Tune’) that already showed them to be more than just a good promise (the second of those albums, in particular, is very good and should not be missed by anyone interested in downtempo dance music).

According to statements made by to the duo themselves at the time of release, ‘Mess’ was their first album to be specifically conceived as an album. Maybe that’s the reason why it sounds so consistent and strong, despite the fact that it covers a lot of different ground within its aesthetics of choice. True, it doesn’t start on the best possible note, with opener ‘The Last of the Red Hot Brethren’ sporting a very basic drum and bass rhythm that sounds a bit too lazy and misplaced. The second track, ‘Big Saddle’, however, immediately corrects that first mistake, and with its infectious and playful piano groove begins a series of highlights that will continue until the end of the album.

With so many highlights, there’s no space in this review to mention them all, but we can’t avoid mentioning: the deep, warm introspection of ‘But Momma’; the blissful, poetic long trip of ‘Soft Music Under the Stars’, which samples a David Sylvian instrumental track (from the classic album ‘Gone to Earth’) and builds and builds with a great sitar solo; the trilogy ‘Hairy Insides’ / ‘DP’s R Us’ / ‘On Yer Haunches’, perhaps the ultimate Fila ‘jam’ (very enveloping and groovy); the dancefloor-ready ‘Howard Dan Ryan’, a contagious masterpiece that masterfully emulates the sounds of steel drums; and the ‘psychedelic’ trip of ‘Blood’, which almost concludes the album before a reprise of the first track, this time with a much more adequate slow beat.

  Fila Brazillia - Mess  (flac   377mb)

01 The Last of the Red Hot Brethren 2:15
02 Big Saddle 4:58
03 Space Hearse 6:07
04 Half Man Half Granary Thorax 1:39
05 But Momma 4:55
06 Laying Down the Law on the Lard 5:03
07 Wavy Gravy 4:37
08 Soft Music Under Stars 10:10
09 Hairy Insides 6:50
10 DP's R Us 2:31
11 On Yer Haunches 4:51
12 Howard Dan Ryan 5:34
13 Blood 5:33
14 The Return of the Red Hot Brethren 2:13


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Black Market Gardening is Fila Brazillia at the peak of creativity. Few other bands can create such a "live feel" with so much technology. Black Market combines downtempo stone cold chillers with hustlin' latin soul and disco and deep space vibe like few other records. 'Blubber Plinth' changes effortlessly from a trip hop hazer to out and out break beat stomper and tracks like 'Xique Xique' and 'Onc Mongani' roll on forever in blissful phased and reverbed crescendo's. It all comes crashing down with the brilliantly mono-toned and thunder filled July 23rd. This crop was well tended and raised in the sunlight of high summer and nurtured to bring about one of the finest vintages of its time.

  Fila Brazillia - Black Market Gardening  (flac   350mb)

01 Obrigado 3:53
02 Snake Ranger 7:55
03 Little Dipper 6:01
04 Blubber Plinth 7:37
05 Butter My Mask 9:14
06 Wigs, Bifocals and Nurishment 8:08
07 Xique-Xique 6:48
08 Onc Mongaani 9:22
09 July 23 5:14


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