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Zero 7 Photek

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Header Banner Made with MyBannerMaker.com! Click here to make your own! Photek is Rupert Parkes

Necessity, so they say, is the mother of invention. It's a sentiment with which Zero 7, one of this decades musical sculptors par excellence, would doubtless concur. Having spent the best part of a year touring their last album, When It Falls, which, along the way, saw them transformed into a vast, super slick, group-like behemoth, Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker felt the need to create a new reality for their third album of beatific tales, The Garden.It wasnt that the When It Falls experience was a particularly negative one far from it, as Sam is at pains to point out, neither of us wants to cast a shadow over that record, but having done the extensive group thing, they both felt it was time to draw a line under that stage of their evolution and get back to basics.What this meant in essence was returning to the days of just Henry and Sam in a studio, bodging things a bit, and those things sticking on the record rather than being replaced by somebody else (Sam).This simpler, more relaxed and less pressured environment was also informed by Henrys move out of Londons sprawling metropolis. Having got twitchy in the capital, Henry upped sticks to the relative calm of Glastonbury the town, not the festival, he quickly states.There he built a studio (It was good not to think about music for a while) and kept in contact with Sam back in London.He'd call me every now and again, Sam recollects, and say, we havent got room for a vocal booth so well shut this door and therell be a curtain and whatever.And then last spring, with the pair of them cleansed and refreshed, work began in earnest on their third album when the last nail was hammered into the wall.Or were there no nails? Asks Sam, mindful of the fact that it was chiefly Henrys DIY skills that pre-empted the venture.No, there were plenty of nails, Henry deadpans.Having mapped out rough ideas on the piano and guitar (I thought wed mess about and get some demos, explains Sam, but we just did it. Once you start, you start.), the music soon flowed.Unlike on When It Falls where they could call on the services of everything and anything, only having a limited amount of material at their disposal seemed to fire Zero 7s imagination.You get what you can out of it, they both agree. It was a mood that would begin to shape the records bountiful flavours.And whereas the last record was perhaps a slight shift towards introspection lest we forget they were reacting to the inordinate success of their glorious, era-defining debut set, Simple Things planted firmly in The Garden was lots of vibrant light.The result is an unqualified success: instantly recognisable, and yet, beguilingly fresh, The Garden is a freewheeling and evocative piece of music. Benefiting from a more focused approach theres only two collaborators, long-time cohort Sia, and future folk sensation Jose Gonzales it clearly serves notice of Zero 7s talent for eking out sunshine-soaked ambient soul.From the gentle British folk tones of Left Behind to the mesmeric sonic tonic of This Fine Social Scene, there are thrills and spills aplenty at every turn.Your Place betrays a sly nod to the symphonic grandeur of David Axelrod and the jazz stylings of Roy Budd; the instrumental Seeing Things is all woozy, cinematic French electronica and the exotically titled The Pageant Of The Bizarre is nostalgic chamber pop.These are headed off by the opening assault of Futures (featuring Gonzales) all shimmering acoustics and Throw It All Away (featuring Sia) exuberant bluesy psychedelia which set the mood perfectly.It was just good being out of London, explains Sam. It was done during the summer; Sia and Jose would come and stay for a few days and there was no music biz bullshit. I was back on forth on the train every couple of days; it was expensive, although not as expensive as lunch in Notting Hill."I loved it. It all sounds like a nice hippy set up, and it was really. There'd always be a few people showing up, having BBQ, two cats in the yard, laughs Henry.The Garden is also notable in that it marks the vocal debut of one Henry Binns. And while he doesnt want the record to be defined by such a fact I dont want to be talking about that for the next year it does add another personality to the mix. Thats him duetting on Throw It All Away, This Fine Social Scene and Waiting To Die, while he sings solo on Your Place.However, if theres one thing Henry and Sam dont want people to be confused by, its the albums title. Taken from the album artwork, which is a series of collages designed by a friend of theirs, entitled, spookily enough, The Garden, the duo are keen for the albums meaning not to get lost in translation.The collage is made up of old bits of wallpaper and other stuff thats been left behind or thrown away, its an overgrown and kind of mysterious garden I think maybe its about experience, Henry suggests. I think it makes something beautiful as well nothing to do with gardening though.Beautiful, informed; an infectious mix of the synthetic and authentic. Welcome, then, to Zero 7s garden: we think youll like it there. Zero 7 - Futures feat Jose Gonzalez

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Member Since: 06/07/2007
Band Website: zero7.co.uk
Band Members: To hear Zero 7's New Music, Go To: "http://www.myspace.com/zero7official". Give them an add and they'll show some Love! Photek is Rupert Parkes (born 1972, St Albans, England), a Los Angeles based record producer and DJ. He joined the drum and bass scene relatively early (his first release was in 1992, a collaboration with Rob Solomon a.k.a. Lexis), and is still one of its most respected players. In the mid-to-late Nineties he was a very active remixer and has also done some soundtrack work, most notably for The Animatrix. - WikiPedia Encyclopedia ************************* Click On Video Below To See Sia Furler Along With Tina Dico And Zero 7 Performing "Somersault" On Live Televsion In The U.S. Sia Furler, Her Udenialble Voice in "Destiny". "When listening, I feel her connect to my soul, I think of Love and Life and she defines it so true in a blanket of tranquility". - Stan A.K.A. DJ Knowledge See Sia Furler in her video of "Breath Me" Here: http://www.smellslikemusic.com/artist/pages/1209/sia.html ************************* Zero 7 is a Grammy nominated downtempo styled musical duo comprising Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker from the United Kingdom. The band's songs feature vocals from Mozez, Sia Furler, Tina Dico, Sophie Barker, José González, and for the first time, Henry Binns providing backing vocals on the third album, The Garden. Zero 7 are sometimes viewed as the British counterpart to the French downtempo group Air. - WikiPedia Encyclopedia Sia and Zero 7 Live At Shepherds Bush Empire (Part 2 of 2)

Add to My Profile | More Videos This Video Is A Live Performance Of Zero 7, Performing "Destiny" ************************* Sia Furler's CD "Colour The Small One"
Influences: Zero 7 have been popularly featured in various film and TV soundtracks, as well as lounge music compilations such as The Chillout Project by Filipino DJ Anton Ramos, and the Hôtel Costes compilation CDs. Their track "Lo" was featured on a mix CD by Layo and Bushwacka!, and is the reason behind the common mistake of people thinking that Layo and Bushwacka! had remixed the track. It is one of the few times the track has actually appeared on CD or in digital form, as the only Zero 7 release it has been featured on is EP1 which was only available on vinyl. Their music appearances in movies and television are also apparent, most notably their songs "Destiny" (Blue Crush, Raising Helen, Roswell), "Give It Away" (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation), and "In The Waiting Line" (Garden State, Sex and the City, House). Currently, "Destiny" is featured on the Lacoste website. For SkyTV's broadcast of the Star Wars Saga, "Destiny" was used as the background music in the romance version of the full length commercial. In early 2006, HBO used "In The Waiting Line" for a promotional for the network's upcoming season of shows. The 96-second trailer featured clips of the shows moving in backwards fashion. - Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Sounds Like: Photek is Rupert Parkes His early tracks are somewhat ambient, but already feature the rhythm pattern of his seminal 1997 work Modus Operandi, which embodies most of his mid-nineties style: Atmospheric, but at the same time very cold and paranoid, consisting mostly of jazz-influenced, highly complex drum patterns and sequenced double bass lines, sometimes with minimalistic synth melodies on top. He is also influenced by traditional Japanese music, with song titles as "Ni-Ten-Ichi-Ryu (2 Swords Technique)" (named after the Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryu technique) and "The Seven Samurai" (named after the movie of the same name). His album Solaris (released in 2000) saw quite a bit of change to his music, with gloomy house tracks alongside free-form ambient noise and the usual snare drum attacks. It included the house single "Mine To Give" (featuring Robert Owens), which reached the top spot of Billboard magazine's "Hot Dance Music/Club Play" in 2001. After Solaris, he paid his way out of his contract with Virgin Records sublabel Science, and continues to release 12-inch singles on his own Photek Productions label.These tracks are more club-oriented and reminiscent of the recent work of Roni Size. Parkes also worked with Nine Inch Nails on the album With Teeth by providing additional programming on "All The Love In The World" and remixing the single "The Hand that Feeds", he's rumored to also have been working with Pharrell. His new album Form & Function Vol. 2 is awaiting release. - Wikipedia Encyclopidea
Record Label: Atlantic
Type of Label: Major

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