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City Hi-Fi was conceived in 2002 by Artist and Producer Jason O'Bryan as a solo project that would allow him to produce uncompromising music that reflected his musical tastes, at the time Jason had just finished recording the Dub Pistols album 'Six Million Ways to Live', the album had drawn heavily on Reggae influences and inspired Jason to begin experimenting with recordings that would allow him to follow this direction more faithfully.
Jason's musical education had originally begun as a youth in the Eighties at a time when an exciting new sound, Hip Hop was first emerging globally.
Jason says 'The first music that really moved me personally was Hip Hop and I followed it religiously as a young teenager. I vividly remember rushing home from school to tape the GWR radio shows that used to air from 4-6pm and also seeing Run Dmc interviewed in Ladbroke Grove promoting the 'King of Rock' album on the Old Grey Whistle Test. I got a copy of Malcolm Mclaren's Duck Rock album and was totally consumed by it, I would still have to rate that album as one of the best'.
The 'Duck Rock' album still inspires Jason to this day and it's art direction with its Zulu / Hi-Fi imagery would later go on to inspire the name City Hi-Fi.
Reggae also had always played a big part in Jason's life, he makes frequent visits to Barbados to visit best friend Christian Gibbs. His first visit to the island in 1988 proved to be a life changing experience and as the U.K. discovered Acid house and Ecstasy, Jason, in a parallel universe discovered Dancehall and Jerk chicken.
Jason explains 'My first visit to Barbados completely blew me away. I was totally unprepared for the culture shock and at once fell completely in love with the place, me and Chris were too young to drive at the time so we had to ride the customised buses everywhere with their immense stereo systems pumping out serious bass'.
This was Jason's first introduction to Dancehall, via the big tunes of the day like 'The Stopper' by Cutty Ranks and 'Original Kimbo Kim' by Reggie Stepper.'
Later during Jason's experiments for the Dub Pistol's album 'Six Million Ways to live' many musical directions were pursued but it was Reggae that proved to be the most influential on him.
Jason spent thousands of hours reading and researching Reggae recording techniques and bought literally hundreds of records, initially studying the mix techniques of early pioneers such as King Tubby and Lee Perry.
'I was originally just into the Lee Perry thing, that was my entry point, I would never claim to be Rasta but some of those recordings are the closest I have been to any religious experience, I'm talking about his classics like the Gatherer's 'Words of my Mouth' or The Congos 'Fisherman' and albums like 'Super Ape' and Jah Lion's 'Columbia Collie' they were just so damn heavy production wise. Then I got into the complete Perry madness of tunes like ' Bucky Skank' and 'Tipper Special'.
Jason's early work with the Dub Pistols had drawn from Ska sampling the Skatalites 'Silver Dollar' on 'Cyclone' and Roland Alphonso's 'Cleo's Back' on 'Keep Keep Movin.' and Jason's role as Bass player within the group had further influenced his love of Reggae.
'I was trying to find the perfect Bass lines to use for the Dub Pistols stuff and there are so many of them in Reggae. I was getting into the whole Studio One thing and wondering how sounds were achieved, then I moved on to the Duke Reid stuff and completely fell in love with the vibe of Rock Steady, discovering Phyllis Dillon and the Jamaicans etc, the whole D.J. thing also really appealed to me, particularly U-Roy's versions over the Treasure Isle classics, I followed the D.J. sound back to originators like King Skit and it was at this point I realised that these were the foundations for Hip Hop, and we're talking about 50 years ago! it all made sense to me, the things I had loved about Hip Hop had all begun within Reggae.'
'All this was going on during the recording of 'Six Million Ways to Live' and the things I was learning were being put into practice on that album, but it was always difficult for me to go totally down the reggae route because the Dub Pistols are coming from a Dance angle and so that was always dictating where we could go musically. I decided during that recording that I needed to start a new project up and so City Hi-Fi was born.'
Jason's initial idea for City Hi-Fi was to emulate the classic recordings that had first attracted him to Reggae. But after much thought he decided otherwise.
'I decided that I was going to go for the modern approach, and try the Dancehall thing and try and push that rather than trying to do some throw back nostalgic stuff, everyone I had admired had done something to move music forward and I would like to make music that has value in years to come. I realise that things need to be pushed and you have to roll with the times.'
Jason is currently recording City Hi-Fi's debut release and his current work includes productions for Scissor Sisters, Suncycle, So Solid Crew, Medicine, Chaka Demus & Pliers, Bling Dawg, Ward 21, Kevin Mark Trail, Mark Rae and Fya.
