ALBUMS: Mophono Releases “M.O.3” EP Via DJ Shadow’s Liquid Amber Imprint July 24th!

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“Mophono fuses chunky drum-machine beats with otherworldy sounds for an engrossing outing.” –XLR8R on the “M.O.3” EP

“The forward-thinking, genre-defying producer is known for creating new, unworldly sounds to craft beat VL MONO” takes influence from sound pioneers like Laurie Anderson, and sees Mophono combining a variety of sounds to create a track that sounds likes Mario trying to connect to a dial-up modem.” –SF Weekly

Much like the rest of the artists who have released EPs with DJ Shadow‘s Liquid Amber imprint, Benji Illgen, aka Mophono, formerly
known as DJ Centipede, is a forward-thinking producer who makes beat-driven music that pushes genre boundaries and is at the cutting
edge of the modern electronic scene. He frequently uses vintage analog gear to make new sounds, and his style is, as he puts it, “like driving a vintage European sportscar through a futuristic Tron soundscape.”

On this release, you will hear a variety of unworldly sounds mashed against a mix of loud, distorted rock drums and vintage drum machine
beats. Mophono draws from a wide variety of influences including the musique concréte of early 20th century Parisian composers like Pierre
Henry, early Jamaican dub recordings, and artists like Portishead, Laurie Anderson, Squarepusher, and DJ Premier. For his debut EP on Liquid Amber, the Bay area beat smith takes us on a sonic journey with five mind bending tracks that will alter your perceptions and test your threshold for forward thinking beats. First up, VL MONO is a bass driven experimentation in sound whose avant-garde soundscape will even make the most skilled musician’s imagination run wild. XLR8R calls VL MONO “a smorgasbord of sci-fi bleeps, coarse sound design, and unrecognisable samples. THIZZ BITS hears Mophono bring some bounce into the equation with a myriad of sound effects that contain a surprise at every turn. The EP takes a chilling turn with FLOTSAM, as the track straddles a drum-kit driven tempo and a drudgingly dark composition. “Fuzzy blips and quaggy pops make up the surface layers that bubble from Mophono’s bed of 808s,” says LessThan3, “and the downright haunting vocal serves as the final sonic surprise to complete the impressive production.”Finally, Mophono closes out the M.O.3 EP with 78DK, a heart-pounding rollercoaster ride that showcases’ his mastery of looping and component integration.

Like DJ Shadow, Mophono has been a staple of the music scene there since the early 00s, where he ran the infamous weekly party Change The
Beat for many years, alongside fellow resident DJs The Gaslamp Killer and Citizen Ten. During that time they took the sound of LA’s post-Dilla beat movement and mixed it with the free-spirited philosophy of San Francisco, creating self-styled “psychedelic insanity.” Mophono has played alongside countless DJs who he brought in for Change The Beat nights, including Bonobo, Diplo, Amon Tobin, Squarepusher, and Nightmares On Wax. He also was responsible for booking Low End Theory staples like Flying Lotus, Eprom, and NastyNasty for some of their first shows outside of LA.

Listen & Download Flotsam:
Stereoload
iTunes
Beatport
Amazon
Spotify 

Get to know Mophono and his perspective on his production gear and beat-making process in this video.


TRACKLIST:
1. VL MONO
2. THIZZ BITS
3. 50-50
4. FLOTSAM
5. 78DK

LINKS:

Morphono
Facebook
Twitter
SoundCloud

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