Words and Music on this week's Gilles Peterson Worldwide show:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/rpms/gilles.rpm
Starting from about the 27:50 mark...
Amp Fiddler - 'You Played Me (Instrumental)' (Genuine)
Amp Fiddler - 'Love and War' (Live In Session)
Amp Fiddler - 'Soul Divine (Instrumental)' (Genuine)
Amp Fiddler - 'Eye 2 Eye ' (Live In Session)
Amp Fiddler - 'I Believe In You (Instrumental)' (Genuine)
Amp Fiddler - 'I Believe In You ' (Live In Session)
and again right at the end of the show...
Amp Fiddler - 'I'm Doin Fine' (Live In Session)
-
At the Red Bull Music Academy in Cape Town:
LO-FI:
http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/link/avwebmt1215//RBMA/56k-amp%20fiddler.
rm
HI-FI:
http://interface.audiovideoweb.com/link/avwebmt1215//RBMA/DSL-amp%20fiddler.
rm
ACADEMY DAILY DIARY
Term 2, Day Four
Wednesday, 26 November 2003
Our next lecturer used to be 'Ampadelic' when he did keys and vocals for
George Clinton in Parliament and Funkadelic. Now he is Amp Fiddler, and he's
still pushing the envelope, taking dance music in new directions thanks to
his extensive experience. Once I got my head together and jumped ship on
the party, I realised there was business to be made. As far as your
ambitions, Whatever you say, is what is. Amp Fiddler persisted in making
boxes full of demos on 4, 8 and 16 tracks, following his dream until he got
the break he needed, and while a legend in his own right by now, he¹s still
searching and looking to grow. The new challenge is to forge innovations in
electronic music, to develop what he does as a vocalist, and to convince his
friends that dance is more than a 'gay house music entity'.
Working with artists like Carl Craig and Moodyman was Amp's first
introduction to this dance thing, and he found that he had to adapt his
approach. Generally I'd go in there and there'd be keyboards and a drum
machine. The track would already be done, it just needed something to fill
up the space to get where they wanted in terms of colour. So I had to go on
the dancefloor and research to find out what colours I needed. Because
otherwise I could add something that would be totally too dark or totally
too bright. I had to learn when to stop- musicians like to play too much. I
had to think less about playing and more about how to add to the track. To
think economically, and rhythmically.
Now Amp Fiddler is making his own ground-breaking house music, which he
tours with a live band. In Europe the band would say 'Shall we leave out
the down tempo songs', and in the U.S they'd want to play more downtempo
songs, but I want to try and expose people to two different worlds. Two
different genres at the same time: one that they love, and one that they're
learnin' from.
