New Kingdom,
Dark Sun Riders,
Gunshot(U.K),
Esham,
Public Enemy,
Fundamental(U.K),
Otomo Yoshihide(Japan),
When(Norway),
Def Wish Cast,
Sun Ra
Sounds Like
our own sound somewhere betwwen mr bungle ,public enemy and everywhere in beween sampling everything from inuit throat games to psychedelic folk---but still straight up hip hop!
About CURSE OV DIALECT-new lp out 14/11(aus)30/11(eu)
First Australian Hip Hop artist with a U.S release... Reaching out to the world from their home in Melbourne, Australia, Curse ov Dialect consists of MCs ‘Raceless’ & ‘Vulk Makedonski’, Vocalists ‘Aturungi’ - now known as ‘nothing’ (as in silence) - & ‘August the 2nd’ backed up by DJ / Producer ‘Paso Bionic’.
With a diverse range of backgrounds (Maltese, Macedonian, Anglo-Indian, Maori, and Pakistani), their music comes off as a non-homogenized tapestry of culture. Their political raps, razors sharp writing, unique flows, and standout production accurately represents their knowledge of hip-hop as world music and the multi-cultural climate of their homeland.
Their live show combines unrelenting energy, fine tuned execution, and jaw dropping costumes to create a one-of-a-kind concert experience that tears the hip-hop rulebook to pieces. Curse ov Dialect leave their mark after just one performance or listen Curse represents cultural backgrounds. They launched onto the international stage in 2004 with the support of the Australia Council for the Arts playing at venues across the United States, Europe and Japan. The recent release Wooden Tongues has been well received in the local and international press and signals a new era for the group in that the blend of experimental and more accessible aspects of their music has been achieved with more fluidity and professionalism than in the past .
Releases:
• Wooden Tongues (Mush – International & Valve – Australia 2006)
• Lost in the Real Sky (Mush – International & Valve – Australia 2003)
• Curse Ov Dialect – 8 track EP (a secret release on Psy Harmonics 2001)
• Hex ov Intellect (debut full length album 1998)
• Evil Clownz (demo tape 1995)
Recent major performances:
• 2007 Busdriver national tour(AUSTRALIA)
• 2007 EUROPEAN TOUR OF GREECE,BULGARIA,MACEDONIA,LATVIA,ESTONIA.LITHUANIA,BELARUS,POLAND,AUSTRIA, NETERTHERLANDS,BELGIUM,SWITZERLAND,FRANCE,TURKEY and GERMANY
• St Jeromes Laneway Festival (Melb) 2007
• Sydney festival 2006
• Saul Williams support, Melb 2006
• Edan support national australian tour 2006
• Kool Keith w/ Kut Master Kurt Hifi Bar, Melb 2005
• Atmosphere Support Festival Club, Sydney 2005
• Sydney Tour: 2005 Big Day Out Headline E.A.R. Stage
• Europe tour Sept 2004: Germany, Denmark, Holland, England, Italy, France, Spain & Portugal
• US tour June-July 2004, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles And more with Radioinactive w/ anti mc, Circus (shape shifters) w/ Andre Afram Asmar w/ Listener, Awol One, Vyle, The Opus, Lord 360, Ancient Mith
• Big Day Out 2004 E.A.R. STAGE Syd 23 & 24 Jan: & Hot House Stage Melbourne, 26 Jan 2004
• Buck65: support Melb Dec 2003
• Kid 606: (US) tour support 2003
• Peaches & Regurgitator: tour support 2004
• The Avalanches 2002
• Snog, Atom & His Package (US)
• Sydney Big Day Out Lilly-pad stage 1999-2002
• Livid – Melbourne (2003)
• What is Music? (2000-2002)
• Newcastle Sound Summit (2001 & 2003)
• Brunswick Street Festival (2000-2002) and lots more…
The People
“Righteous, informed and totally bugged-out, Curse ov Dialect are about as unique as you can handle.” (Orlando Weekly)
“The group's loopiness is seen in beats made from snipping scissors and lines from eemceeee Atarungi like, "Mr. Disarray riddles plankton, little shoe, amoebas waging war with testicle residue/ Spermazoids deploy-oy is noids from the voy-oid!” (Christopher R. Weingarten, CMJ)
The Sound
“Sonically, the stew is strewn with spices from every corner of the global bazaar… these Aussies come off like idiot savants, divining hip-hop's destiny as the globe's greatest folk form. From here, the possibilities seem endless again.” (Martin Turenne, Urb)
“Untainted by the need for harder-than-you posturing that pervasive in both the American mainstream and underground … Curse ov Dialect deliver a reminder of how much fun hip-hop used to be in its late 80s/early 90s heyday, before groups like De La Soul and Stetasonic learned all of the things that they weren't supposed to be able to get away with…” (Dan LeRoy, Graffiti)
“… this is certainly some high quality, experimental shit - over 70 minutes worth, to be exact. The politics of their music drips from each song as the beats skip along with staccato vocals dancing over samples, loops, an infusion of international flavors and dope-ass scratches.” (Impact Press)
“At a time when avant/post-hop can be accused of indulging in its own aesthetic trappings, Curse ov Dialect is a bracing reminder that conscious-raising hip-hop doesn't have to be dour and po-faced. In the tradition of Public Enemy, it can free your ass as well as your mind.” –(Richard Moule, Grooves)
“Wordy, dense and political, the best thing here is the beats, which have the loose, surreal energy of people who aren't scared of being sued. “ (Will Ashon, Muzik)
The Message
“… the lyrics are sharp, the composition is exceptional, and the rhythm of the album as a whole is like a well written book - full of interesting dialog, sparks of dramatic intrigue, and moments of pensive reflection. … I find their message to be "all coast" as Curse ov Dialect does a good job of rising above the many socially constructed barriers that divide us. One love." (Shel Kimen, Repellent)
“… Part of the raison d'etre for Curse ov Dialect … is to shove off the smothering legacy of racism in all its forms from the personal and political lives of the group's multi-ethnic but clearly Aboriginal core. Raceless, gets specific in 'Shamans', referencing the warnings of tribal prophets in pre-Melbourne times and rapping intelligently about "sacred land destroyed by sin" - or, in other words, sacred land destroyed by settlers' sheep-farming methods... “ (Splendid)
The Albums
‘Lost In The Real Sky’
“Lost In The Real Sky’ puts Australia on the hip-hop map with a polyglot bang … Curse ov Dialect cram more ideas into one track than many artists muster in their entire careers… ' Lost In The Real Sky' is true next level shit.” (Dave Segal, XLR8R)
“…A wonderfully imagined album that successfully borrows and reinterprets sounds from all facets of music and culture, creatively but still with enough energy and bounce for frequent neck exercise...“ (Brian Ho, Dusted)
“Not only is its production broad in scope and flawless in execution; it single-handedly captures an otherwise elusive portrait of third-world culture in Australia and elsewhere along the way - proof that music can exist as masterpiece and social document simultaneously.” (Splendid)
“In today's popular music world, the concept of originality has unfortunately diminished as more and more groups sound like the next. Not the case here, original beats, and I mean original, comprise 'Lost in the Real Sky'.” (Fixins)
“Funnier than Doseone, noisier than Aceyalone, 'Lost In The Real Sky' is one of the strangest things to emerge from Oz since that Nick Cave and Kylie duet.” (Christopher R. Weingarten, CMJ)
“From acknowledging racist states, to attacking such prejudice, to dreaming of some utopian global community in which "all cultures come together", the album, unlike so many rap records, finds the lyricists talking about not just themselves, but the world at large...” (Anthony Carew, The Age Melbourne)
“Curse ov Dialect are fun to listen to and 'Lost In The Real Sky’ is a funky, fun and loose CD, even if you haven't the slightest idea what is being said.” (Tucson Citizen)
“ 'Lost In The Real Sky' is an uber-weird, completely insane listening experience that deserves to be acclaimed just as heavily, and embraced just as fervently as (fellow Aussie act) the ‘Avalanches' debut was a few years ago.” (Blunt)
Curse “…have managed to make a record that … captures the spirit and energy of their live sets… Whilst everything radiates a strong psychedelic surrealism, at the core there are strong anti-racist, multiculturalist themes - which give the record a very specific Australian-ness... Paso Bionics’ immense production skills (often buried in a live mix) are proudly on show…” (Sebastian Chan, Cyclic Frost)
‘Wooden Tongues’
Take a four-member hip hop tag team that raps in a variety of languages (including more than one inflection of English), and there is absolutely no guarantee that you'll end up with anything listenable. But in the case of Curse Ov Dialect - an Australian quintet (including Dj Paso Bionic) known almost as much for an insane onstage wardrobe as for its collective rhyming skills - the combination of backgrounds, ethnicities and languages comes together with a strange and intermittent brilliance that is sometimes dazzling, sometimes merely baffling. For the former, check out the bassoon samples and flashy turntablism on "Word Up Forever", and the quirkily complicated "Renegades". For the latter, check out their clumsy attempt at waltz-time rapping on "Broken Feathers" and the maladroit lyrics on "Sticks and Stones" ("I don't blame children for having little consciousness/I can see it in their eyes, it's not real despise"). Things bounce back and forth between those two extremes until the very end of the album, when they take things out with a powerful one-two punch in the form of the dark grooves and sharp, almost corrosive politics of "Stop Sarisis" and "Letter to Athens". It's in the nature of this kind of experimentation to fail a considerable percentage of the time - but that just makes the successes all the more thrilling. Recommended. (All Music Guide)
If being the first Australian Hip-hop group to get stateside distribution wasn’t impressive enough, COD was signed to indie-hop bastion Mush on the personal recommendation of Doseone, which is a good indication of their steelo. In both rapping and production their multicultural mishmash is more reigned and tighter compared to their 2003 debut Lost In The Real Sky, but they still sound like The Avalanches tearing though a world music fare (Thankfully, their secret weapon Vulk Makedonski still hasn’t returned to earth!). The biggest shock is that the second half plays with shade and texture, revealing subtlety to be one of their strengths, possibly the only thing not sampled on their debut. Clever, but not pretentious, funky, but not frivolous - Melburn’s finest are one of the best Hip-hop groups in the world who have delivered one of this years best; crank it up and dance around with your undies on your head! (Beat)
I'm always looking for good foreign hip hop. Not the stuff where the guys have foreign accents attempting to rhyme like a french Cormega. I came across an Australian group called Curse Ov Dialect made of an eclectic background of characters (Maltese, Macedonian, Indian, Maori, and Pakistani). They have pretty sharp production and unique deliveries. They just released an album on Mush Records called Wooden Tongues. (Hip Hop Database)
It’s an increasingly rare observation, but Melbourne art-hop renegades Curse Ov Dialect sound totally and utterly like no other band. Tying traditional Middle Eastern and European folk, field recordings and found sounds into a visceral, multi-lingual and wildly experimental avant-hip hop knot, they push, bend and breach every border on the hip hop atlas. New record Wooden Tongues picks up where 2003’s internationally acclaimed Lost in the Real Sky left off, drawing from anything from psychedelic Turkish rock to Mandarin Opera to colour equally political, impassioned, surrealist and hilarious lyrical excursions. A truly audacious and important group.(Music Australia Guide)
Curse Ov Dialect offer up Wooden Tongues (Mush), and how do I describe this? If you liked The Avalanches' Since I Left You for its carefully selected samples, but wished the hip-hop references was more evident, you're almost there. If the references were made more evident by some Australian rappers, would you be moved to buy this? I hope so, because this isn't a group who find a good part of a song, loop it forever and take the listener on a journey by pressing "cruise control". No, this is bumpy, lumpy, and not grumpy. Will you accept the challenge? The members of Curves Ov Dialect all have diverse backgrounds, which not only includes different ethnic foundations but also very unique record collections. Together, they bring together a very different hip-hop mixture that really should be in the forefront. "Saturday Night" could easily be one of a thousand songs about going into the club, but in this case it's about looking at the world with a frustrated mindstate. "Take Me To The Arab World", which could easily be something stolen from the Diplo archives, involves a voyage into the land of the unknown while embracing the familiarity of a female voice and unusual flutes which could morph into the sound of a video game at any given time. Upon first listen everything sounds out of place and abstract, but take it in with various increased dosages and one realizes that these guys are supposed to sound like this. If the guys in cLOUDDEAD/Reaching Quiet decided to stay in London or Sydney for six months while being exposed to the best and worst of each city, they would rupture their own bladders and end up making music that is quite refreshing to hear. I did say "music" because while some argue that a lot of modern hip-hop is anything but musical, Curse Ov Dialect actually offer a bit of musical sense, logic, and knowledge that makes them exceptional and different from the norm. I enjoyed it because it seems these guys were willing to throw various influences, sounds, and dialects in a blender, and said "alright, now let's assemble this. Physically the pieces of the puzzle may not fit, but aurally anything is about. If anything, listening to Wooden Tongues will make you feel as if it's "not here", but in another part of the world that's too far to travel to. By opening up the album's musical world, you hear something that may be strange and yet familiar at the same time. Now you're here, you're home. Welcome them in and make them feel at home. (Music For America)
Two years in the making, the latest from Melbourne's Curse Ov Dialect shows once again how the Aussies (namely COD and Macromantics) are kicking hip-hop ass in the innovation department. With MC's Raceless, Atarungi, August 2 and Vulk Makedonski surrounding the generated sounds from DJ Paso Bionic, the multiculti aspect these guys put in the forefront on their last album gets kicked up a notch here; it's such a whirlwind tour of the world of sounds you almost throw up, but at no point do you sense a loss of focus or get the impression you're being tossed esoteric shapes for the sake of forced eclectism. Flowing rhymes and scratches complement Muslimgauze-ish beats, baroque horns, kid choruses and operatic flights, Bollywood cooing, Balkan horn blasts all presented in sharp precision appropriate to the assorted lyrics (which focus, needless to say, on worldly diversity/cultural unity). It's really admirable that all this can be presented with total energy and cohesiveness while *still* acknowledging all that is right about hip-hop history. The fact these guys have namedropped the Boredoms in interviews probably speaks volumes as well. (WFMU(Beware of the blog))
The Performance
Their wild, swirling, chaotic and cacophonic live performances have to be seen to be believed, and take hip-hop into areas of world music, sonic bricolage and avant-garde performance un-dreamt of by most US practitioners. (Tony Mitchell, Music Forum)
Raceless is wont to dress up and declaim as Captain Cook, complete with periwig, while Vulk is kitted out in traditional Macedonian costume and performs dance steps to match, August 2 might don a grass skirt and bare chest, and Atarungi (whose name means Witch Doctor in Maori) strikes poses and offers vocalizations costumed as a tree or completely swathed in a shroud. DJ Paso Bionic, with his Adidas tracksuit… is the only conventional hip-hop figure in sight. (Tony Mitchell, Music Forum)
“On stage, outsider hip-hop, outfit Curse ov Dialect are all about… outfits; their performance-art-esque shows coming draped in all manner of wacky costumes. On their debut disc, you finally get to see them for what's underneath all those ostentatious on-stage accoutrements. And, basically, that's a bunch of earnest kids." (Anthony Carew, The Age/Melbourne)
Pending the new release "Melotonine" (release date coming soon), i decided to offer you a part of my best recent works in a free EP, "Cupboard Replacement", downloadable in all numeric formats with special graphic art works by Flint on Music AutOmatiK's Website :
We can stay in contact on facebook now... Thanks for your support !
The Pryor Theory launch debut "El Futuro" this Friday 6th at Pony. With dubsteppers Editor and Ms Butt from 10pm. As well as performing material from El Futuro, the Pryor Theory will perform their usual live mash-ups of Kelis, Naughty by Nature, NAS and Beatles. Blessings, Martino
Hey thanks fellas, We'll be in Melbourne in a couple of weeks - the espy on the 19th nov and the brunswick hotel on the 20th Nov, maybe we'll catch you there.
COME OUT AND PARTY WITH ME!!! J RockA and Sarai Knowledge performing live! The must be at spot... definitely an event you won't wanna miss!!!
Friday, November 6, 2009 7pm-11pm City Hall, San Francisco "Where Hip Hop Meets Couture" A historical evening of high couture fashion show infused with hip-hop,live performances, and music/fashion professionals...
Meet in greets with the likes of Ed Hardy, The Source Magazine, Warner Bros., Interscope Records, and more...
$40 / $100 VIP includes admission to the official afterparty at Club 525 11:30pm - 2:30pm 525 Howard St., San Francisco
Limited presale tickets available online at airbornetickets.com Or if you're a local,tickets are available at Gussie's Chicken & Waffles 1521 Eddy St. in the heart of the historical Fillmore jazz district... Come down for some good ol' soul food!
Would love to see your beautiful faces :-) Hit me up if your going!! And if you're not in the SF area, check out show updates on my website at www.justbetrue.com for live events at a town near you!!!
Give thanks for your support xoxo Sending love and wishing you infinite abundance... Sarai
Hey! I'll be playing at Loop on Wednesday 12th November or Saturday 14th of November @ Oktobar with Combat Wombat, Elf, Mantra, Wasabi, TakaCo and Akil From J5! if you aren't too busy come on down!!
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