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Beat maker and multi-instrumentalist Dan 'Room E' Harumi recently had a mixtape posted as the first of a series in London-based art magazine, Art Wednesday.
The mixtape features mostly new and unreleased Room E tracks (including two live studio sessions with Room E’s band of A Scribe Amidst the Lions members Kris Towne, Mike Hams, and Bobby Roquero), two new tracks from San Diego hip hop duo Parker & the Numberman (with whom Room E has an album of “more straight forward hip hop beats”coming out soon), and selections from Al Green, The Moody Blues, and more.
Room E’s newest album, Penguin Child, is available on CD/digital via U.K. label Proper Songs.
On Penguin Child, the 26-year-old Bay Area native mixes live and programmed electronic music with what he calls “dilettante-style instrumentation” - a pastiche of turntables, live drum samples, xylophone, pump organ, melodica, accordion, synth, electric bass, Ableton, and “random stuff around the house.”
“Instead of a hi-hat, I made a recording of tapping on a water bottle with a pen and EQ-ed it to make it sound cool,” Harumi told The Reader in January.
“I also used a field recorder to get doors slamming shut or a bike on the concrete and then put them into Ableton. Once you have the sound in front of you, you can use it as a drum or pitch it up and down to create a melody.”
In addition to found sound and household percussion, Harumi recorded jam sessions with drummer Mike Hams (A Scribe Amidst the Lions, V Drago, Brian Ellis Group) at Control Center for the Sun Studios, chopped up the recordings, and built songs around the beats.
“The album continues on themes first presented in Lanterns, namely the use of an elegant, baroque tone within the context of contemporary beat music,” Harumi writes on his website.
The result is a mercurial aesthetic often rooted in post-Dilla instrumental hip hop beats of the Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing, Baths, and Gold Panda ilk.
While finding parallels with the L.A. beat crowd, Room E readily branches off on tangents of ambient pop, drum n bass, afrobeat, IDM, jazz, and post-rock, alternately reminiscent of Squarepusher, the Brainfeeder roster, Boards of Canada, and The Cure.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/jul/02/27174/
Beat maker and multi-instrumentalist Dan 'Room E' Harumi recently had a mixtape posted as the first of a series in London-based art magazine, Art Wednesday.
The mixtape features mostly new and unreleased Room E tracks (including two live studio sessions with Room E’s band of A Scribe Amidst the Lions members Kris Towne, Mike Hams, and Bobby Roquero), two new tracks from San Diego hip hop duo Parker & the Numberman (with whom Room E has an album of “more straight forward hip hop beats”coming out soon), and selections from Al Green, The Moody Blues, and more.
Room E’s newest album, Penguin Child, is available on CD/digital via U.K. label Proper Songs.
On Penguin Child, the 26-year-old Bay Area native mixes live and programmed electronic music with what he calls “dilettante-style instrumentation” - a pastiche of turntables, live drum samples, xylophone, pump organ, melodica, accordion, synth, electric bass, Ableton, and “random stuff around the house.”
“Instead of a hi-hat, I made a recording of tapping on a water bottle with a pen and EQ-ed it to make it sound cool,” Harumi told The Reader in January.
“I also used a field recorder to get doors slamming shut or a bike on the concrete and then put them into Ableton. Once you have the sound in front of you, you can use it as a drum or pitch it up and down to create a melody.”
In addition to found sound and household percussion, Harumi recorded jam sessions with drummer Mike Hams (A Scribe Amidst the Lions, V Drago, Brian Ellis Group) at Control Center for the Sun Studios, chopped up the recordings, and built songs around the beats.
“The album continues on themes first presented in Lanterns, namely the use of an elegant, baroque tone within the context of contemporary beat music,” Harumi writes on his website.
The result is a mercurial aesthetic often rooted in post-Dilla instrumental hip hop beats of the Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing, Baths, and Gold Panda ilk.
While finding parallels with the L.A. beat crowd, Room E readily branches off on tangents of ambient pop, drum n bass, afrobeat, IDM, jazz, and post-rock, alternately reminiscent of Squarepusher, the Brainfeeder roster, Boards of Canada, and The Cure.
http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/jul/02/27174/