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Breakbeat Era, aka Bristol-based singer/songwriter Lennie Laws, DJ Die and Roni Size, finally unleash their debut album - a record which has been eagerly anticipated by those that know ever since the classic and groundbreaking"Breakbeat Era" track first laid down the template a couple of years ago.
At a time when drum and bass seems to have driven itself down a dark and dead-end alley Breakbeat Era take hold of the reins and prove that they can push the genre further than anyone ever believed it could go. As Melody Maker recently wrote, "Breakbeat Era are a welcome antidote to pre-millenial darkcore, injecting some humanity back into the equation. Best of all, though, it ain't coffee table." Even the constantly mutating drum and bass scene hasn't produced anything as innovative and accessible as Breakbeat Era since Reprazent's Mercury Award-winning venture New Forms. But where the latter spun smooth soundscapes out of jazz breaks and elegant vocals, Breakbeat Era takes the funk out to a harder edge and brings the vocals deep down and dirty.
The real difference between Breakbeat Era and anything that has gone before in drum 'n' bass is to be found in Lennie Laws. Hailing from an altogether different musical background this fellow Bristolian brings a maverick punk element into the mix, darting her way between the reinforced beats, breathing life into the whole thing with her extraordinary searing vocals and snarling, off-beat lyrics. Lennie's songwriting skills were honed during a nomadic lifestyle which took her busking round Britain, India and Japan before she took up residency at a jazz club in Tokyo. Back in Bristol she spent more time writing songs and playing in local jazz clubs before Bristol's burgeoning dance scene attracted her attention and she met the Full Cycle posse.
The trio first collaborated on "Breakbeat Era" which was originally released on the Full Cycle Music Box compilation. The story began almost three years ago when Roni and Die were putting together the track. They were already aware of Lennie's vocal and songwriting talents through friends and she provided them with a home tape of one of her songs which they quickly incorporated into the track. They called it Breakbeat Era, which was also to serve as the name for the new collective. Drum and bass aficionados will know the track well as an enduring anthem on the scene. XL licensed that track and released it last summer - continued club and radio support made it a Top 20 hit.
The critical response from the three vinyl only releases "Rancid", Bullit Proof" and "Ultra-Obscene", put out over the last two months, has been phenomenal, and all three tracks have been taken up permanent residence in the clubs and on specialist radio. The commercial release of "Ultra-Obscene" on August 9th is set to repeat the chart success of its "Breakbeat Era" - the track has been playlisted by Radio One - and when the album drops at the end of month Breakbeat Era and Lennie Laws will be firmly established as one of the most important live dance acts this year.
On stage Lennie is a force to be reckoned with. She is joined by FX wizard Liam Duggan, rip-tearing bassist Joe Allen and the breathtaking drummer Toby Pascoe, who defies all human limitations to reproduce the most complex, chopped-up breaks in real time. Although Die and Roni take a back seat on the live proceedings, any sceptics were quickly silenced by Breakbeat Era's storming sell-out performance at London's Jazz Cafe in June. Lennie belted it out to an ecstatic crowd with such personality, verve and raw energy, that she was immediately hailed as "one of the dance world's finest frontwomen" (The Times). A clutch of glittering reviews from the likes of NME, Melody Maker, The Guardian, DJ, The Evening Standard and Touch, confirmed Seven magazine's prediction that "Lennie Laws is a star in the making". Breakbeat Era are currently in the middle of a European tour and will be shortly off to deliver the same in the US.
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Discography
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Year
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Label
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Title
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1999 |
Interscope Records
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Our Disease Maxi Single
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1999 |
A&M Records
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Ultra-Obscene
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