Octave One, Slam Mode

Arriving onto the electronic scene with "I Believe", featured on the monumental (10 Records) compilation "Techno 2: The Next Generation" (alongside Carl Craig, Marc Kinchen, and Jay Denham) in 1990, Octave One is the brainchild of the phenomenal native sons of Detroit, MI (USA), the Burden Brothers. The core unit of the band, made up of Lenny and Lawrence Burden (with revolving members of Lynell, Lorne, and Lance Burden), have had the privilege of bringing their high energy live shows to many parts of the world, including Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and the USA, among many other places.

The brothers have released groundbreaking dance anthems on their own Detroit based record label, 430 West Records. Including DJ Rolando's "Jaguar", Random Noise Generation's "Falling in Dub" (the other Burden brother moniker), Aux 88's "My A.U.X. Mind" (on the 430 West sister label Direct Beat), as well as their own Octave One recordings: "Empower", "Nicolette", 'The X-files", "Meridian", "Love and Hate", "The Greater Good", and 'Siege". They have remixed tracks for such artists as Massive Attack, Akabu (Joey Negro), DJ Rolando (Jaguar), Steve Bug, John Thomas, Aril Brikha, Vince Watson, The Trampps, Rhythm is Rhythm, and Inner City.

2000 brought the most recognized Octave One release to date, "Blackwater". The massive hit has appeared on over 30 compilation albums worldwide (with sales exceeding one million collectively). It has been released domestically in 5 countries (US, UK, Spain, Germany, and Australia). The track is also been a classic on the decks of some of the world's best known DJs, Little Louie Vega, Danny Teneglia, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May, Jonathan Peters, Laurent Garnier, among many, many others.

Late 2006 brought the release of the first full length DVD/CD project from the group, Octave One featuring Random Noise Generation "Off The Grid", released in cooperation with Tresor Records/Germany. 2009 saw the release of the band's first studio album in 3 years, "Summers on Jupiter" released in cooperation with P-vine/Japan. Other Octave One albums have also highlighted the boys' career: "The Living Key (To Images From Above)" (1997), "The Collective" (1998), and "The Theory Of Everything" (2004) among many other releases.

2011 welcomes the release of the Octave One retrospective compilation "Revisited: Here, There, and Beyond". Marking 20 years of living the Techno life. "Here, There, and Beyond" features O1 classics reworked by some of the band's favorite producers: Luke Slater, Sandwell District, Ken Ishii, Alexander Kowalski, Vince Watson, Alter Ego, Los Hermanos, and Cari Lekenbusch. "Revisited: Here, There, and Beyond", both the album and tour are slated for release in November 2011. One more milestone in the journey of one of Techno's most exciting bands.


For those who maintain the more mutable dance music is, the deeper its impact on human evolution, RVNG Intl. presents We Are Not The First, an Epic conducted and deconstructed by Chicago artist Hieroglyphic Being and the J.I.T.U. Ahn-Sahm-Bul.
We Are Not The First combines the musical forces of Marshall Allen, Daniel Carter, Greg Fox, Shelley Hirsch, Shahzad Ismaily, Elliott Levin, Jamal Moss, Rafael Sanchez, and Ben Vida in deep dialogue with each other and humans' hidden sonic history.
Tracked as different personale patterns over a week of studio sessions in Brooklyn, said syntax translates into mesmerizing sound forms as the ensemble excavates sonic folklore and ancient music, employing spiritual-jazz's welfare and health as an agency for balance.
An album with an active brain, We Are Not The First aspires to reprogram the mind, to transcend our expectations through bugged-out percussion, modular mayhem, flurries of free improvisation, and voices carrying through the air.
Jamal Moss provides speech its due pulpit in in the opening piece, "Apes & Ages. "Forward… Backward… Evolution" intones Moss in "Apes & Ages," setting an appropriately opaque stage for the album's genesis.
Shelly Hirsch exorcises ethereal vocals to subtly incomparable measure in "Civilization That Is Dying." Hirsch's vocal throw is near a Theremin's: she controls sound that is deep within, delivering an operatic warble at full freak-uency while Ben Vida and Shahzad Ismaily take turns running textures up and down the acid washboard.
"Fuck The Ghetto / Think About Outer Space" is an ecstatic, erratic anthem, navigating the fog to invite critical speculation on Humanity's "Prison of Technology" and the digital documentation of Identity. Rafael Sanchez admonishes, in a way, scatting: "the ghetto" is "of the mind."
Language and meaning collide in "Root Of." Sanchez speaks into the maelstrom of Marshall Allen and Greg Fox's outer bound bond. In memoriam and in search of an end to the subjugation of persons, "Root Of" demarcates We Are Not The First – and its agents – into the album's darker and lighter sides.
On "Universe Is A Simulation," Daniel Carter's sax meanders on an improvised beat, almost melancholic but crucially conscious, merging with Fox and Moss in a frequency-haze not unlike the surface blur that sand makes vibrating on top a drum.
At 18 minutes and 44 seconds, the final movement, "We Are Not The First," is a celebration of struggle and the living art of noise. Here an almost complete Ahn-Sam-Buhl (get it now?) redirects a city street through the studio filling the air with an implicit interplay of blinking light in contrast.
Hieroglyphic Being & J.I.T.U.. Ahn-Sahm-Bul develop consciousness from primordial ooze. As in listening, the ooze intones an echo of our deep past, rendering the present ever focused. We Are Not The First is an 11-part Epic and each track is a movement therein that testifies: an ensemble's vitality lives in its collectivity. When we ask the ooze, the ooze articulates: We Are Not The First.
Hieroglyphic Being & J.I.T.U. Ahn-Sahm-Bul's We Are Not The First will be released on October 30, 2015 on RVNG Intl. as a limited edition double LP, CD and digital formats.