Rough Out There by Noiseshaper

Unlike it's predecessor, who was mainly based on instrumentals, Axel and Flo worked with some of the UK´s finest dub vocalists such as Farda P, Spikey Tee and MC Tweed among others.

With the catchy "All A Dem A Do" performed by Juggla, Noiseshaper made it on rotation with several radio stations around Europe and the US. Undoubtedly this track was crucial for the success of the album.

The success of this second album brought Axel and Flo Remix opportunities from great figures like

Sly & Robbie and Outkast. Recently Noiseshaper were able to prove their remix skills with their version of the 70´s chart breaker „Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas.

In July 2005 Noiseshaper`s third album "Rough Out There" will be released...!

This time, instead of using guest singers, the twosome decided to work with Juggla as the main vocalist on most tracks and backing him with the soulful voice of Jackie Deane. For the steppers tune "Bushmasta" and the title track "Rough Out There" they invited Dennis Bovell to Adrian Sherwood's legendary London based On-U Sound studio to play bass, as you will hear the result was just amazing.

"Rough Out There" is also going to be the first single release from the new album. Once again a smooth groove blended with Juggla´s conscious lyrics will put a smile on your face whilst listening to the tune.

After all, the new Noiseshaper long player is a rough and tough musical statement in Dub about where we are now and where we should go on from here.

The album will be supported by an uplifting live performance in which Axel and Flo swap between drums, keyboards, guitar, melodica and the mixing desk, whilst the charisma of Juggla on the mic, keeps the crowd bouncing.

"......Rough Out There plays like a laid-out collection of ten tracks of conscious roots music addressing a "world plagued by wars and corruption." ...they are coming with something that casual fans of Thievery Corporation and Zero 7 can sink their bedroom-rocker teeth into. All in all a drip-dropping dose of dubby goodness from start to finish, but it was the remix of Carl Douglas's disco classic "Kung Fu Fighting" that had my 'funky Chinaman from funky Chinatown' kicking and bawling. - RE:UP Magazine

"....Overall a decent, sometimes fantastic album as it holds some very strong tracks. We recommend especially the opening track, track 8 (sounds as a Massive Attack versus the Mad Professor track) and track 10. For those of you who like modern loungy dub with a lot of soul, this is a good chance to make that collection even bigger. -Dogmatik Magazine

"... great stuff " -Atomica Magazine

"..pleasurable listing experience" -Kevchino.com

"....pushing the envelope technically as most everything electronic out of Germany does these days. The songwriting is topnotch, with tunes like "Walls of Silence" calling for détente while "Rough Out There" acknowledges the decay" - Raves.com

".....A rare ting dat, in dis day. But what I've come to expect from continental dub-inspired music, with the triangle of Austria, Germany, and the UK putting out the most consistently high-quality reggae-inspired but "post-Jamaican" music.....The recording studios for this project say it all about sources of the creative fusing of Jamaican and European music: Home, Berlin The Elephant House, Birmingham On-U Sound, London. Highly recommended. -The Dub Revolution -Gregory Stephen

"....is simply a gorgeous Iberian guitar-addled number, where strings whisper lovingly. "Bushmaster"

preaches an anti-violence message over synth touches and a low reaching bass.........Music for the summer! -Mosoule.

"......reminiscent of Nightmares on Wax. - Sigla

".....The pleasures are many .... pure entertainment, start to finish. -Jahworks.org

After its invention in Jamaica in the early '70s, dub saw a dramatic rebirth with the advent of electronic production and hip-hop/remix culture. It's stayed a popular medium for musical expression because just about anybody with the right tools can generate the rolling basslines, timeshifting drums, and spaced-out psychedelic effects that form its core. To do dub right, though, is another thing entirely, and that's a gift possessed by the rare few. (Witness Stefan Betke's brilliant '90s experiments with glitchtronica as Pole, for example.) Interestingly, dub and its relatives have become a pretty hot thing in Europe, driven by an active, open-minded nightclub culture.

ALL ABOUT JAZZ:

Noiseshaper, a duo of Axel Hirn and Flo Fleischmann (originally from Vienna but now living in London and Berlin), recognized the power of dub to hybridize with other genres pretty early on. Their very effective second album, The Signal, commingled dub with funk and electronica, presenting a rotating cast of vocalists at the mic. The brand new Rough Out There continues along a similar theme, though one vocalist fronts the group most of the time: Juggla. His voice is not particularly colorful or quirky, but his insistence on the melody keeps the music focused, and he's got an interesting way of twisting dark lyrics into ear candy.

The music on Rough Out There is uniformly accessible and friendly, with heavy bass and drums that keep shifting around in order to avoid machine-like tendencies. Words like downtempo and chillout come to mind at times, but this is creative stuff, not saccharine taffy. Check out the tongue-in-cheek snippets of Chinese melody on the R&B/dub trip "Kung Fu Fighting"; the fire-fueled momentum of the ragga/rap anti-war anthem "Automatic"; and the groovy benzo slowdown of the title track about trust, war, and lies. Michael Madden, who wrote most of the lyrics, has direct aim but also a taste for the poetic twist.

Very few bands can make a record this catchy and accessible without dumbing it down. Credit Noiseshaper for keeping the creative flame alive, mixing things up in fresh ways, and getting down and deep into the groove just about every time. Two thumbs up!

CD HOT LIST:

Combining deep, rich, rootwise reggae grooves and hard-hitting lyrics with sharp-edged and chilled-out electronica, the German ensemble known as Noiseshaper makes some of the most exciting postmodern reggae music around. Their third album features, among other highlights, a funky and hilarious remix of the Carl Douglas kitsch-disco classic "Kung Fu Fighting." Recommended to all pop collections. (RA)

ALL MUSIC GUIDE:

Reviewby Rick Anderson

Someday someone should write a doctoral dissertation examining the question of why, at the beginning of the 21st century, so much of the best modern reggae and dub was being produced in Berlin -- a city as far removed, in about every possible way, as it is possible to be from Jamaica. Whatever the explanation, Noiseshaper (aka Axel Hirn and Flo Fleischmann) continue to assert the city's dominance with this, the duo's third full-length album. In the past, Noiseshaper have worked with a variety of singers and DJs, but for Rough Out There they decided to stick primarily with a very fine singjay named Juggla, who brings conscious lyrics, an impressive flow, and a passable singing voice to Noiseshaper's modern roots grooves. While the group does a fine job with such straight-ahead reggae material as "Walls of Silence" and the conscious dancehall wiggle of "This Is Not a Gunthing," they really stand out on more experimental fare, such as the dark and soulful "Walking" (featuring singer Jackie Deane) and the languid "Perdido." The album's final track is a wonderful remix of Carl Douglas' disco-kitsch classic "Kung Fu Fighting." Highly recommended.

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