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7"
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ANOST 011EP
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Released in 2006. Whereas Queue For Love enlarged the abstract-electronic foundation of Populous' debut album Quipo with reference points such as jazz, space, songwriting and soul (as attitude AND sound reference), Breathes The Best learns to stand on its own two feet, finally free of expectations. "Breathes The Best" is a digital pop song with body (in the sense of space to breathe) and soul. "Bon Bon Pour Les Rappers" begins as a game of soundscapes, absorbed by Populous' earliest passion: a nonchalant rhythm pattern. "Blood Red Bird" is a cover of a Smog classic, played by Andrea Mangia's friends, Giardini Di Mirò -- mixed and rearranged by Populous. Melancholy, indulging, rapt and close to your ear.
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CD
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MORR 033CD
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2002 release. Andrea Mangia comes from a small town in South-Apulia, an area which might be known better as the Italian boot's high heel. Using the PC, Andrea starts organizing and fusing his musical influences. Rock gradually falls into oblivion, making room for hip-hop and a subtle sensitivity about pop mechanics. After a while, Mangia's music moulds into a precise and reduced version of abstract electronica owing to Andrea's all time faves A Tribe Called Quest as it does to Phoenicia or Phonem. Looking for an artist moniker, the tiny adjective "populous" grabbed Andrea's attention, not because of its actual meaning, but rather its onomatopoeic qualities. "I loved that word immediately. It just sounded nice: two p's, two u's, two o's, including the word 'pop!'" Populous' personal Quipo now consists of the "ones and twos" a hip-hop DJ uses to rearrange the popcultural "goods in storage." It also consists of the "zeros and ones" used by a computer to synthesize new compounds from those elements. Thus, Populous' abstract soundscapes, his fragile melodies contrasted by quite physical beats add a new flavor to the Morr Music pie, which cannot be summed up by a convenient and bloated category like "indietronics" anymore, anyway.
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LP
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MORR 033LP
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2002 release. LP version.
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CD
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MORR 051CD
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If you come across a teenager who is into hip-hop nowadays, it's almost a surprise if they don't understand the genre as the ultimate and dodgy mainstream between bling-bling and crunk, but appreciate hip-hop's golden era starting in the late '80s instead. With his debut album Quipo, Italian producer Populous already showed that he drew his very own conclusions from the jazzed up beats and positive vibes of the Native-Tongues movement around A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. Whereas Quipo still displayed a mildly bulky attraction influenced by abstract electronica, Queue For Love now has a much more homogeneous atmosphere and a warmth fed by carefully-selected samples from soul-jazz and soundtrack records from the late '60s and early '70s. Unlike the aesthetics of recent, dominating approaches to hip-hop, Queue For Love is a triumph of the DIY ethos. After all, Andrea Mangia is just a kid with a computer and an incorruptible taste. Queue For Love isn't pure sampledelia, though. A lot of the guitars, e-bows and glockenspiels on this album have been recorded in the bathroom of Populous' tiny student apartment. This album is smooth and balanced and hip-hop at heart, reaching out to songwriting, ambient, folk and film scores. All of this is delicately held together by a remarkable concept of "soul" and obviously, "love."
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LP
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MORR 051LP
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