Tim Holland
Bud Berning
William Ryan Fritch
Jon Wagner
stupid things implode on themselves video by ravi zupa
"in paradise"
sole & skyrider live in slovenia
"shipwreckers" & "100 light years and running"
sole & skyrider live in paris @ glazart
"ghost assassinating other ghosts"
sole & skyrider live in zagreb, croatia @ mochvara
sole and the skyrider band propaganda video by ravi zupa
Influences
"
This is the official sole myspace page, run by sole himself.
Fan Art! If you have art having to do with sole, send it to me and ill put it up!
Sounds Like
"
.. mansbestfriend 3 "myownworstenemy"
17 new tracks recorded in barcelona from 2003-2005
all music and words by sole.
all tracks remixed in summer of 2005 & remastered from original "war on self tour" limited version.
..
sole "songs that went tin"
15 tracks w/ jel, alias, sage, why?, odd nosdam, bomarr monk, telephone jim jesus, & passage.
unreleased songs from 99-2004
..
sole "live from rome"
2005 anticon records
"This is the future of hip-hop" - Playboy Magazine
..
mansbestfriend pt 2 "no thanks"
on morr music
..
selling live water
2001 anticon
"Truth is, I only rap 'cause I ain't smart enough to write a book," confesses Sole on "Da Baddest Poet." That's not entirely true: The liner notes of Selling Live Water read like a miniature Allen Ginsberg diary, with profound insights nestled amid the minutiae. Like his fel-low hip-hop dreamers on the anticon label he helped found, Sole has plenty to share-sometimes too much, with words jammed rhymelessly into the jams. But his latest album also takes a wise turn from the found-sound abstraction that's been another anticon staple. The beats are harder and more East Coast-solid on Water; "Salt on Everything" and the title track are actually abrasively catchy, And Sole's will-ingness to bust lyrical caps in the asses of the left as well as the right make him a fairly revolutionary revolutionary-one whose musical journal keeping, for all its excesses, is worth deciphering.
- ALTERNATIVE PRESS MAGAZINE – APRIL 2003
..
bottle of humans
sole 's debut full length release on anticon, and his first widely distributed record, was released in 1999 and quickly became a cult-classic, but by the year 2001 the record's initial pressing went out of print due to a dispute with anticon's previous distributor. The bootlegging is finally over! This highly anticipated CD reissue has been remastered, the record's artwork has been revitalized the way it was originally intended (including the album's lyrics in the liner notes) and its track listing has been slightly altered.
..
learning to walk
very old material from 94-98
A head-nodding collection of cuts recorded between 1994 and 1998. Sixteen tracks of max-level, consciousness raising hip hop --ber-groove featuring production from ALIAS, MOODSWING 9, MR. SKURGE, SAMPLE 208, DJ SHAME, and RANDY NKONOKI, and guest mic action from MR. SKURGE, INFINITO, ALIAS, D-STROY, MR. COMPLEX, ADEEM, and RIPONE.
..
deep puddle dynamics| taste of rain...why kneel?
Taken in tandem, deep puddle managed to pull off not only a measured experiment -- a hip-hop album freed from hip-hopâs self-obsession -- but also a highly personal piece of music. Those twin calendar days -- that pair of dusty summer evenings split by twelve months -- encased what anticon was becoming and, later, what it had already become -- date-stamping beautifully the friendships from which it was comprised. This time it's out of anticon's own back pocket with the artwork the way it was originally intended, some new liner notes and a bonus track "rainmen (Controller 7 remix)." Features Slug (of Atmosphere), sole, doseone and alias (all three of anticon)...not to mention jel, Abilities, mayonnaise, moodswing and ant.
..
So-Called Artists Paint by Number Songs
Three boys from Maine move to California to become So Called Artists and strike it rich... or so the story goes. Grating pencils and grinding teeth to spew music while sharing one East Oakland apartment, Sole, Alias, and Dj Mayonnaise have made the most of their new home. Paying dues on the stages of the seediest clubs with the worst soundmen in San Francisco, they have emerged seasoned performers with stage presence to spare. So Called Artists brandish sarcasm in ballad form to the tune of orchestral sampling and unfold into a metallic hiphop with the dust of ten decades on top; why, it's bad men making good music. The heavy deconstruction of a classic trio has begun, and there is nothing we can do about it.
"
With some fairness, Sole's musical arc to this point might be described as a series of battle raps whose range of targets has gradually widened. His early work, beginning with his demo of 1992 (which included such hits as "Cops Ain't Shit") was deeply beholden to the New York rap of that era, Lord Finesse most especially. After all, his first album, self-released in 1994 when he was but sixteen, was entitled, Mad Skillz and Unpaid Billz. Though the plural "z's" were dropped from future releases, the forceful language and aura of overconfidence vital to classic battle rap remained. His proper, post-adolescent albums, Bottle of Humans (2000), Selling Live Water (2003), and Live From Rome (2005) each mixed traditional rap aesthetics with a more original and highly poetic approach with growing sophistication.
Live From Rome, the recording of which spanned a near nervous breakdown, a providential marriage, and a move to Barcelona, was a transitional record, personally searching and politically embittered. That period was epochal for Sole, particularly his alternately disturbing and exhilarating experiences touring Eastern Europe and Israel with his wife, Yasamin. They stumbled across a cache of anticon bootlegs in a tiny outdoor market in Moscow, were caught in the middle of the 2005 church and mosque-burning riots in Belgrade (while they watched the chaos on CNN, tear gas filled their hotel room), bribed crooked Serbian police for their freedom, and hosted a radio show on the Israeli Army’s Radio Station, on which Sole pumped Gregory Corso's reading of his long poem, "Bomb," and Public Enemy's "Louder than a Bomb." His return to American soil after nearly two years was occasioned by his participation in Sage Francis's Knowmore.org tour of 2006. He was surprised to find that his homeland had not yet fallen to Brownshirts, and he and Yasamin decided to stay and make a home in rocky Flagstaff, Arizona.
Though Sole had spent most of his career working with celebrated producers—primarily Alias, Odd Nosdam (of cLOUDDEAD), and JEL (of subtle)—by 2005 he had for some time been looking for a working relationship with a more exclusively focused yet also uniquely talented group of musicians. His solo instrumental work, released in 2005 on Morr Music and in 2007 on anticon as mansbestfriend, and his yearlong collaboration with half of Barcelona's Tortoise-like improvational outfit Twelve were aspects of this search. On tour with Dosh, Pedestrian, and Telephone Jim Jesus in 2005, fate landed the caravan at the tropical home of Bud Berning, an electronic musician and dub drummer then recording solo work as SkyRider. Intrigued by SkyRider's sound, Sole later returned to Orlando on a short tour of the Southeast and collaborated with Berning and two musicians who had recently joined the Skyrider fold. Not naturally attracted to music born of machines, Bud had only begun tinkering with computers while immobilized after a coma resulting from a traumatic collision in Mexico City in 2002. The two instrumentalists Berning recruited, Tennessee native John Wagner and omni-instrumentalist William Ryan Fritch, not only fleshed out Berning's sample-based ideas, but also added their own distinct musical voices. As Sole and SkyRider played, sparks struck, and Sole had the quickness of mind to immediately invite SkyRider to move to Flagstaff and record an album.
Against all odds, the band accepted the offer and before long found themselves sharing a house in Flagstaff. Nearly the moment they arrived, SkyRider began playing and recording intensely at Sole's studio, set at an eight thousand foot elevation at the foot of a mountain amid a garden of collard greens, melons, and green beans. Sole promptly scrapped the ten or so songs he'd already recorded towards an album—with a formidable line-up of producers, no less—and devoted himself fully to realizing the distinct sound he'd long heard only in his own head and further sharpening his art of battle rapping the biggest of enemies: empire, ennui, the industries of distraction, and, not least of all, himself.
man u dont know bout that delorean shit...try to justify the revolution through the execution of a real solution no use usin/ cause the worlds just to damn confusin. We must choose them or we lose they win. Hughes Johnson
you should come back to our little corner of hell...Check out the new track on my page called A Wrinkle in Time. any feedback is greatly appreciated. Peace!
yes sole, wicked show at zoro, it was an honour to do the warm up gig! u cant be 30 and still mek hip hop...luv it! hope to link again soon. bassnluv, dressla clay...
Hey there, just dropping by to say hi and to let you know that starting July 3rd I will be at Graven Image Tattoo fulltime Monday – Saturday so if you get a chance drop on by 1398 W El Camino Real, Suite E Mountain View, CA 94040 or call (650) 988-1818 to schedule an appointment Well back to all this art stuff for me, have an awesome day
Much Love Matthew Hamlet p.s. if I haven’t thanked you for adding me well thank you for having me around!!!
.. mansbestfriend 3 "myownworstenemy"
17 new tracks recorded in barcelona from 2003-2005
all music and words by sole.
all tracks remixed in summer of 2005 & remastered from original "war on self tour" limited version.
..
sole "songs that went tin"
15 tracks w/ jel, alias, sage, why?, odd nosdam, bomarr monk, telephone jim jesus, & passage.
unreleased songs from 99-2004
..
sole "live from rome"
2005 anticon records
"This is the future of hip-hop" - Playboy Magazine
..
mansbestfriend pt 2 "no thanks"
on morr music
..
selling live water
2001 anticon
"Truth is, I only rap 'cause I ain't smart enough to write a book," confesses Sole on "Da Baddest Poet." That's not entirely true: The liner notes of Selling Live Water read like a miniature Allen Ginsberg diary, with profound insights nestled amid the minutiae. Like his fel-low hip-hop dreamers on the anticon label he helped found, Sole has plenty to share-sometimes too much, with words jammed rhymelessly into the jams. But his latest album also takes a wise turn from the found-sound abstraction that's been another anticon staple. The beats are harder and more East Coast-solid on Water; "Salt on Everything" and the title track are actually abrasively catchy, And Sole's will-ingness to bust lyrical caps in the asses of the left as well as the right make him a fairly revolutionary revolutionary-one whose musical journal keeping, for all its excesses, is worth deciphering.
- ALTERNATIVE PRESS MAGAZINE – APRIL 2003
..
bottle of humans
sole 's debut full length release on anticon, and his first widely distributed record, was released in 1999 and quickly became a cult-classic, but by the year 2001 the record's initial pressing went out of print due to a dispute with anticon's previous distributor. The bootlegging is finally over! This highly anticipated CD reissue has been remastered, the record's artwork has been revitalized the way it was originally intended (including the album's lyrics in the liner notes) and its track listing has been slightly altered.
..
learning to walk
very old material from 94-98
A head-nodding collection of cuts recorded between 1994 and 1998. Sixteen tracks of max-level, consciousness raising hip hop --ber-groove featuring production from ALIAS, MOODSWING 9, MR. SKURGE, SAMPLE 208, DJ SHAME, and RANDY NKONOKI, and guest mic action from MR. SKURGE, INFINITO, ALIAS, D-STROY, MR. COMPLEX, ADEEM, and RIPONE.
..
deep puddle dynamics| taste of rain...why kneel?
Taken in tandem, deep puddle managed to pull off not only a measured experiment -- a hip-hop album freed from hip-hopâs self-obsession -- but also a highly personal piece of music. Those twin calendar days -- that pair of dusty summer evenings split by twelve months -- encased what anticon was becoming and, later, what it had already become -- date-stamping beautifully the friendships from which it was comprised. This time it's out of anticon's own back pocket with the artwork the way it was originally intended, some new liner notes and a bonus track "rainmen (Controller 7 remix)." Features Slug (of Atmosphere), sole, doseone and alias (all three of anticon)...not to mention jel, Abilities, mayonnaise, moodswing and ant.
..
So-Called Artists Paint by Number Songs
Three boys from Maine move to California to become So Called Artists and strike it rich... or so the story goes. Grating pencils and grinding teeth to spew music while sharing one East Oakland apartment, Sole, Alias, and Dj Mayonnaise have made the most of their new home. Paying dues on the stages of the seediest clubs with the worst soundmen in San Francisco, they have emerged seasoned performers with stage presence to spare. So Called Artists brandish sarcasm in ballad form to the tune of orchestral sampling and unfold into a metallic hiphop with the dust of ten decades on top; why, it's bad men making good music. The heavy deconstruction of a classic trio has begun, and there is nothing we can do about it. 
