MABS: Hybrid (Taking Music Beyond Progression)

Being the first MABS (Music Artist/Band Spotlight) feature post, I had to choose a group close to my heart, and who could well be my favourite band of all time.

Cast your mind back to the days when ISDN was just being introduced. I was in university at the time and couldn’t afford such luxuries, so I had to make do with a 56.6K dial-up modem. Oh yes, those days.

I had been “into” music for as long as I could remember, and through my life up to that point had travelled across genres like they were countries. I took my time, but once I left one genre and stumbled into the next I rarely visited the places I’d been. Toward the end of the 1990′s, this began to change. I removed the stick from my arse and became comfortable with listening to a variety of music all of the time, and suddenly my need to discover new music grew exponentially.

Some of you may remember this small program called Napster. It arrived on the scene at just the right time for me, for I was able to use it to listen to all kinds of new stuff. I’m being honest when I say that when I found something I liked, I went out and bought it. My CD collection was my pride and joy, and like eBooks today, at the time I was uncomfortable with not having the hard copy on my shelf. This, then, might explain why one of my favourite past-times became sifting through CD’s in music stores, and picking out things that I liked the name of, or liked the cover of, or generally just “had a good feeling” about. I called them my “John Peel Specials”, and only very rarely was I disappointed.

Despite my untempered fondness for music across all genres, I had back then a strong love for the electronic; anything with a beat in it, popularly known as “dance music” (though I hated then and still hate now that term). Despite many discoveries of bands and artists that wowed me, I felt for a long time that a huge trick was being missed; that somewhere out there a band was producing the kind of music that I’d never heard, but had always wanted.

One day, whilst I slowly crawled through listings of songs on Napster, I came across one that caught my eye. The band was called “Hybrid”, and the song title was “Finished Symphony”. I started to download the track, having a really good feeling about it, and half a day later my 6MB download was complete.

I loaded it into WinAmp (I was a PC boy back then).

I pressed play.

I was blown away.

Fat progressive beats pumped from my speakers, accompanied by a real orchestra of strings. It was a cinematic explosion of sounds, different layers expertly laid on top of one another. It was a sweet hybrid of electronic music and live instruments. It was exactly what I’d been wanting.

 

Who are Hybrid?

The core of the band is made up of Mike Truman and Chris Healings, who come from Swansea, in Wales (UK). They met on the club scene, one being a DJ and the other making tunes in his bedroom. Back in 1999, when they released their debut album, other people were involved such as Julee Cruise and Lee Mullin, but by the second album they were no longer present. As time went by, each album they released seemed to involve different guest band members, not to mention special guest stars. Session singers Kirsty Hawkshaw (of “It’s a Fine Day” fame) and Tim Hutton have done a lot of work with them, while Peter Hook from New Order has supplied bass guitar on more than one occasion.

With the latest album–the fourth artist album “Disappear Here”–Charlotte James had seemingly stepped into the guest-band-member shoes, only her involvement was far more than anyone before her. It’s emerged that Charlotte has become, officially, the third member of Hybrid, and her influence is clear to hear. A singer-songwriter, she’s brought a new structure to the songs Hybrid make, and she’s not a bad guitar player, either.

 

What’s the Fuss About?

1999′s debut album, “Wide Angle”, was released to critical acclaim. I don’t even need to search the internet to tell you that the broadsheet newspaper “The Independent” reviewed the album, the reviewer citing it as the “most emotional piece of electronic music” he’d ever heard.

That first album was a mass of breakbeat and symphonic orchestrations with a cinematic scope, and some great vocals to boot. The band had hired the Russian Symphonic Orchestra to record the string sections, which I thought was just an amazing thing for a “dance act” to do (they would continue to hire different orchestras for each album).

In 2000 the album was re-released as a 2CD special edition, called “Wider Angle”. The second disc had an amazing live set that made you wish you were there, and a few extra tracks, one being “Kid 2000″ which was recorded with none other than Chrissie Hynde (former lead singer for “The Pretenders” on vocals. Already, they were attracting stars.

2001 saw the release of a project, as such, called “Remix and Additional Production by…”. It’s an album filled with songs remixed by the then duo, and mixed together, to create an hour long experience highlighting just how good they are when given a studio to play around in.

In 2003, after a long silence and making me worry about whether they were still together or not, they released their second artist album, “Morning Sci-Fi”. If ever there was a title (and cover image) to suit the contents this was it. Taking what they had in Wide Angle and building on it, every track was layered with unimagineable brilliance, and the production design was to die for. At the time it was the best thing I’d ever heard, like Wide Angle before it, and just like a good film the more you listened, the more intricacies of composition you picked up on and picked out.

But it was only a glimpse of what was to come. After putting together a DJ album for their record label called “Hybrid Presents… Y4K” (awesomeness in itself), Hybrid returned in 2006 with “I Choose Noise”. Tentatively I put the CD into the player, certain they couldn’t beat the heights of Morning Sci-Fi, but oh how wrong I was.

Going darker than ever before, I Choose Noise was an assault on the senses that I couldn’t get enough of. By now they were working with Harry Gregson-Williams, the film score composer, and the brilliance of 2006′s album saw the collaborative work go both ways.

Hybrid have now helped out Harry on scores for films such as “Man On Fire” and “Unstoppable”, “Wolverine: X-Men Origins” (for which they also had a hand in the sound design for the film), and most recently “Cowboys & Aliens”. They also scored a film called Catacombs, which I watched solely because of their involvement.

Roll on to 2010, and after releasing another superb 2cd DJ/remix album, “Hybrid_Soundsystem_01″ (which is pure cinematic excellence), they met up with one Charlotte James, and the new three-part band released “Disappear Here”. Like all that came before it, this had the signature cinematic feel of Hybrid, and it was now all brought together with the structure and songwriting that James contributed. The result is a far reaching record, gelling great beats with sweeping orchestrations and a new, almost acoustic rock feel. For a band who call themselves “Hybrid”, they sure do deliver.

The fuss, then, is about a band that isn’t afraid to push the envelope–and themselves–further and further, and the more alien the territory the more they seem to flourish. Whether instrumental or accompanied with well-written lyrics, each track doesn’t fail to connect with my emotions and bury itself deep in my soul. Their remixes never fail to add a new layer to the old, making bad songs great and great songs better.

They also remain one of the few “dance” acts to use a live band when playing live. Kudos.

 

Where Have I Heard Them Before?

They are one of those bands who you may not have heard of, but probably have heard. Aside from being involved directly with film music, their album songs have also been featured in many films, TV shows, adverts and even computer games. The UK’s “Top Gear” should perhaps have a “Sponsored by Hybrid” credit, for in almost every episode for the last few years Hybrid has been used. Every time you hear a bit of cool music that sounds cinematic, it was probably them.

 

What’s Next?

After four artist albums, four remix and DJ albums, and over 100 remixes done of and for other artists (including Radiohead, U2 and Moby), Hybrid have finally decided it’s time to release a “Best Of…” compilation called “Classics”. As a treat to their fans, they invited them to submit suggestions for a cover song that they will record for the album (mine was “A View to a Kill” by Duran Duran).

They also have a new single coming out, “Blind Side”, which will be released on their own label, Kill City Records (Kill City is the name of a track on Wider Angle, and is (obviously) awesome) and I expect more greatness to come. Of course, once my book’s published and then made into a film, I’ll be demanding they score it.

On top of all that, they’re such good people that they regularly update their site and Soundcloud page with new DJ sets and songs. For free.

 

Discography

Studio Albums	Wide Angle (1999) Wider Angle (2000) Morning Sci-Fi (2003) I Choose Noise (2006) Disappear Here (2010) Disappear Here (Widescreen Edition) (2010)
Remix Albums	Remix and Additional Production by… (2001) Hybrid Remixed (2007) Soundsystem_01 (200
DJ Albums	Hybrid Present: Y4K (2004)
Promo Releases	The Remix Collection (1996) Symphony (1996) Music from the Forthcoming Album Wide Angle (199 Views from Wide Angle (1999) Scores (2005)

 

Some Choice Tunes

This is the hardest section for me to do, because naturally I want to list every song they’ve done (they really haven’t done a bad one). So, I’ll make it even harder on myself and select one song from each of the four artist albums.

From Wide Angle/Wider Angle it has to be the one that, for me, started it all. “Finished Symphony”.

Moving on to Morning Sci-Fi, I’ve gone for one that’s great played live, and one that I think is the embodiment of the album as a whole, “Out of the Dark”.

The third album, I Choose Noise, saw a return to orchestra-heavy tracks (Morning Sci-Fi was strings-lite) but keeping the darkness of the previous album. It makes choosing just one all the harder. “Dogstar” is my choice. Beats, strings, vocals, and awesome production.

So now we come to Disappear Here. Hopefully, the tracks I’ve chosen so far will show the leaps in progression from album to album, making it seem impossible for things to get any better. And then they do. People, I give you the title track, “Disappear Here”.

So those are my choices, and my head now hurts. That was tough. The thing is that every track is different, going from slow and moody to hyper and mental, and each has its unique qualities that make it so good and worth listening to. Being restricted to just 4 tracks, I can’t do them any justice, for their range is so wide.

So I can’t help myself, I’m going to give you two extra treats. The first is Hybrid’s remix of “The Eve of the War” from “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds” (the original 1970s double album being a particular favourite of mine). The second is a “previously unreleased” song called “Sleepwalking” that appeared on the Hybrid Remixed album, and shows just how demented they can get (“we’re motherf#cking twisted!”.

 

Further Reading

Band’s official website

Soundcloud

Facebook Page

Twitter

Hybrid discography at Discogs

 

Comments Are Open

Naturally you’ll love Hybrid, but please feel free to spread the love. Please also let me know if you like this idea of a feature.