Friday, September 12, 2008

Free Noize: Radiohiro


I first became aware of Matt aka Radiohiro when he and DJ Warp were helping to put on our original Six Degrees sponsored nights in Chicago. I then began to hear artists like Karsh Kale slipping some of his "slamming" tracks into their DJ sets. When Matt finally visited San Francisco and dropped off a few CDs worth of his original compositions and his incredible "white label" bhangra remixes, I knew this guy was someone to watch and promptly commissioned him to do a remix of Karsh Kale's track "Manifest". As you can see from his bio- the guy has quite an interesting background as well. (I had no idea he was the drummer with one of my favorite groups, Mike Kandel's Tranqulity Bass .

A Radiohiro track NEVER fails to send a dance-floor into an ecstatic frenzy and we're happy to offer one of his latest tunes for your listening and moshing pleasure.

Radiohiro has been bringing the sounds of the subcontinent straight to you via deep bass and tabla induced breakbeats for years. A lifelong music producer and DJ, Radiohiro is rewriting the sounds of London's "Asian Underground" movement. His sound can be best described as bass induced breakbeats/electronica with lush Hindustani, Punjabi and East Indian bollywood mixtures seamlessly worked in .

A trained drummer since the age of 4, Radiohiro was exposed to East Indian music thru his Jazz training, while listening to John McLaughlin's 'Shakti' records which featured Master Violinist, L. Shankar and the masters of Indian percussion, including Zakir Hussain. After that he was sold on the deep integrity and rhythmic complexities of East Indian Hindustani music forms and looked for ways to expose this style to a Western audience. One way was to build a pirate FM radio station and produce a show featuring Asian Underground, Bhangra, Bollywood and Drum 'n' Bass, which he did for 6 years. Using voice samples of his hypercool friend from Tokyo, Hiro, as the radio announcer between songs, he titled his show, Radiohiro. As the show gained notoriety from 1996 until it's demise in 2002, he decided to take on the name Radiohiro, for public appearances as well.

Performing, DJing, remixing, and promoting global music has landed Radiohiro, and his co-conspirator DJ Warp, rave reviews in media portals such as Time Magazine, XLR8R, Time Out, The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Reader, Rhapsody Music, NPR, CLTV, Flavorpill, Bhopadum, and New City. As club promoters, Radiohiro and DJ Warp, aka BOMBAY BEATBOX have hosted and debuted like-minded artists such as Bill Laswell's Tabla Beat Science, Talvin Singh, Karsh Kale, DJ Rehka, MIDIval Punditz, Cheb I Sabbah, Janaka Selekta, State of Bengal, Bassnectar, Luke Vibert, Born Into Brothels Ensemble, Mercene Dede, Atari Teenage Riot, David Starfire, Dzihan & Kamien, as well as many others.

As a 'world music' events promoter and producer, he has worked and/or recorded several major Indian Hindustani Classical guru out there today, including masters Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Jasraj, Sultan Khan, Masters Of Percussion, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Ajoy Chakrabarthy, Shayid Parvez, Kushal Das, Kaushiki Desikan, Vishwan Mohan Bhott, Rajan and Sajan Mishra, Ulhas Kashalkar and many others .

Radiohiro has performed at just about every music venue in Chicago and was recently asked to be the very first DJ, along with DJ Warp, to perform at one of Chicago's most prestigious venues, the Chicago Symphony Center, where they converted a packed house to the future sounds of the international dance music. Radiohiro was also the drummer for the founder of Trip Hop Music, Tranquility Bass (Astralwerks/EMI/MoWax/MTVamp), and has been performing his own music at the Burningman festival for the past 11 years.

Radiohiro, as a concept, is also a conglomerate of musicians that work together. As a person, one cannot take credit for everything that is heard, therefore Radiohiro is also seen as a umbrella for a host of artists that contribute.

As an emerging artist, Radiohiro, as a producer, has recently created music with Karsh Kale for the highly respected world music label, Six Degrees Records. Radiohiro has also worked with great music masters including Quincy Jones, written music for corporates such as Microsoft, and is currently doing sound design for A&E Cable Networks and PBS. Radiohiro has also finished his first film score collaboration for the independent film, Leg Before Wicket, a true story about India and Pakistan's partition/conflict.

His latest music is getting rotation on several FM radio stations in America, Germany, South Asia, Manchester - UK, BBC's Radio ONE (Friction and Nihal) and BBC's Asian Music Network (Friction, Pathaan's Musical Rickshaw, and Nerm's Electro East, DJ Kayper). Radiohiro's track, Diabollycal was selected as the number one pick for three weeks in a row in March '08, on BBC's Asian Network.

Along with DJ Warp, they are key players in Karsh Kale's Kollektiv, an international consortium of Asian music producers and collaborators. Radiohiro tracks can be downloaded for free at www.radiohiro.com, and his work with Karsh Kale is available at www.sixdegreesrecords.com and www.itunes.com and most other digital outlets.

(Karsh Kale's - Newborn Star from the LP, Broken English. And the Karsh Kale "Manifest" remixes - Radiohiro remix). Look for a complete new set of Asian Massive tracks from Radiohiro in Spring 2008, including remixes from Bassnectar and Karsh Kale, among others.

Over the years prior to this incarnation, Radiohiro has either worked with or shared the stage with this vast array of artists and record companies including: Matmos, Atari Teenage Riot, Rage Aginst The Machine, George Brooks, Larry Coryell, Bill Laswell, Steve Gorn, Hal Russell and the NRG Ensemble, Blue Note Records, Verve Records, Astralwerks records, Stereolab, Sony Records, MCA Records, Ozzfest Radio, ArtistDirect.com, Alligator Records, Garbage, Fiona Apple, Primus, Barenaked Ladies, Jamiroquai, Sean Lennon, Alice In Chains, Incubus, Train, Ben Folds Five, Underworld, Cibo Matto, Len, Jeff Buckley, The Fugees, System Of A Down, Lollapalooza, White Zombie, L7, Tupac Shakur, 24-7 Spies, New Line Cinema, Rolling Stone.com, Babes In Toyland, GBH, Discharge, Killing Joke, Toxic Reasons, and Public Image Ltd

Get the FREE download here

(Download Instructions
On a PC: right click, select "Save This Link As..." and choose the destination for the file on your computer.
On a Mac: option-click on the link. File will download to your desktop.)


Radiohiro thinks Burningman rocks (still) http://www.burningmanchicago.org

e-mail Radiohiro or Join Mailing List: radiohiroarmy@radiohiro.com

Get more free music downloads at www.radiohiro.com

3 comments:

Matt Reoch said...

We love Matty!

Suz said...

radiohiro! best live sets... ! see him live!!!!

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As a 'world music' events promoter and producer, he has worked and/or recorded several major Indian Hindustani Classical guru out there today, including masters Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Jasraj, Sultan Khan, Masters Of Percussion, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Ajoy Chakrabarthy, Shayid Parvez, Kushal Das, Kaushiki Desikan, Vishwan Mohan Bhott, Rajan and Sajan Mishra, Ulhas Kashalkar and many others