BAOBINGA AND I.D. [30:04:08] FRESH IS BEST English breakbeat duo Baobinga and I.D. have dropped an album that is breathing new life into the genre. Not simply an exercise in cramming in big beats, ‘Big Monster’ is an album for dancers and listeners. Being an artist album, how does 'Big Monster' showcase what Baobinga & I.D. are about musically? Well, if we had a plan with ‘Big Monster’, it was basically to take as many of our musical inspirations as possible and, er, bend them into shapes that we enjoy, if that makes sense. We love and get inspired by all sorts of music, from metal to Latin to techno, and we wanted to use as many of the ideas from these different sounds as we could - partly to keep things interesting for the listener, and partly to keep ourselves interested! At the beginning of the Big Monster project - with the release of 'Rite Of Passage' in 2006, the idea was to take mainly the sounds of rolling, melodic techno but to lose the constant kick drum - which was a contrast to some of the more hardcore, garage influenced stuff we had released previously. But as time went on, we expanded that to just try and make a really varied album - hence the grime MCs, the space-rock and the acid house! The overall sound of the record is often futuristic with more than a hint (and nod I must admit) to the past - is it important to you guys to bring the past into the current and mix it together to make the future? Yeah, definitely. We're really inspired not just by certain genres, but by certain periods within them - we blether-on tediously to anyone who'll listen about the Naples techno scene around 2002, Bristol drum & bass 1995 - 1997, early 90s Pixies, blah blah blah ... these were all periods where things seemed to come together, at least in terms of what works for us. So our thinking went along the lines that if we could try to take what we liked from these scenes - in the case of the Italian techno, that would be the chunky, swinging-butt-rolling percussion for example - and merge it with something else - for example, with some more chopped up beats - then we could create something comparatively fresh. Utility Man Baobinga and I.D. play at Breaks & Enter at GPO Seven40 on May 2. ‘Big Monster’ is out now on Big Fat through Sony BMG back to top ^

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