Album Notes

We very proud to announce the new Noiseshaper album "Real to Real" A collection of timeless dub/reggae/downbeat music, is a terrific-sounding album with some tight grooves for the dancehall and the club. All tracks were re-recorded in the Noiseshaper sound in London and Berlin and were overdubbed and mixed by dub legend Adrian Sherwood at the On U Sound studio in Crouch End. ..

...featuring vocalists such unique and distinctive as Ari Up (The Slits), G.Rizo (who has just released her 12’ debut on the DJ Hell Label Gigolo), Jackie Deane, Vido Jelashee I, Wayne Martin, Juggla, MC Shureshock and Jahcoustix.

After seven years, three albums, a whole heap of 12- inches and numerous remix projects, this new Noiseshaper release sees the band reviewing their past.

That doesn't mean that “Real To Reel” is just another sampler or 'best of' compilation: this album looks forward just as much as it does back. It takes us back to the early days of this truly outstanding band, it unearths long lost, ultra rare material and looks to the future with several brand new tracks. Not even the re-released tracks are taken straight from the archives: everything on “Real To Reel” has passed through the genius hands of dubmaster Adrian Sherwood, has been chased through the nooks and crannies of his magic mixing desk in London. And for dub, that's the musical equivalent of being knighted. It's also well-earned recognition for the band's many years of hard work.

Things have never been easy for Noiseshaper. In 1999, Florian Fleischmann and Axel Hirn moved from Vienna to Berlin only to be confronted with stubborn prejudice and the usual 'Kruder & Dorfmeister-influenced bedroom producer scene' comparisons which every musically inclined native of Vienna at home at the intersection of dub, house and reggae has probably encountered at some point. Challenge number two was the band's need to carve out their own, distinctive niche to differentiate themselves from Berlin's redoubtable heavyweights, Rhythm & Sound.

Like so many others, Hirn and Fleischmann were producing in their bedrooms, twiddling knobs and bringing together reggae, dub and house. But that's where the similarities ended. Noiseshaper were dirtier, rootsier; live instruments featured prominently in their sound, knocking any accusations of R&S plagiarism well and truly on the head.

Florian Fleischmann has always emphasized his classic reggae background and love of Toots & The Maytals, The Harder They Come and, of course, Bob Marley. For him reggae is far more than just a fashionable music style with some atmospheric burbling: it is music with an important message.

In 2001, the band released the album “Prelaunch Sequence” on the renowned Different Drummer label. “Rise”, “The Only Redeemer” (feat. Vido) and “Moving Together” (feat. Wayne Martin) are the stand-out tracks on the album and are featured on “Real To Reel”.

When it was released, “Prelaunch Sequence” fell into the void torn open by the end of the digi-dub movement in the UK. Predating the first monster hits for the German dancehall scene, the album was sinfully neglected here, perhaps due to the faint techno associations of the album title and the brittle transitions between dub, reggae and house elements. Things were different on other side of the Atlantic, where numerous college radio stations put Noiseshaper's version of reggae on heavy rotation.

Although “Prelaunch Sequence” wasn't a great hit, it did impressively avoid the usual clichés and the CD is now a highly sought-after collector's item. It was more than two years before Noiseshaper released their second album, “The Signal”, which is represented on “Real To Reel” by “All A Dem A Do”, “You Take Control”, “Jah Dub” and “Dunk”. The album could have been the band's breakthrough: featuring the G-Corp-MC singer Juggla, a sound system veteran from Birmingham and a perfect vocalist for Noiseshaper, it toned down the house elements in favour of a deep, conscious reggae sound. The single “All A Dem A Do” became a radio hit in Germany and Austria.

Everything was looking really good; too good, in fact: shortly after the album was released the independent distribution company EFA went bust and most of the copies of “The Signal” got dragged into the protracted bankruptcy proceedings. It would have come as no surprise if this had been the end of Noiseshaper, particularly because Axel Hirn moved from Berlin to London where he has since worked as a sound engineer in Adrian Sherwood's On U Sound studio.
However, the long distance relationship has not harmed the band's unique alchemy.

The album “Rough Out There”, represented here by the TVS remix of “Walls Of Silence”, Kid Kenobi's remix of “Bushmaster” and two versions of the title track, was released in 2005 and is arguably Noiseshaper's most mature album. Juggla became a permanent member of the band, giving them a real front man and a highly distinctive vocalist. Juggla describes the very special chemistry which unites the three band members:

“We're not interested in the clash and bashment culture of dancehall reggae. That's simply not our world. We represent conscious roots reggae. I don't want to stand at the mic dissing women or singing about burning “heretics” in some fire.” Asked if the title “Rough Out There” refers to the band's difficult years, Florian says that it is more a description of the world. The band themselves are comparatively happy but, “the world has become a rougher place. There are so many wars, so many people suffering. It's rough out there.

And for as long as that continues, our music will represent harmony and we will stand up against violence and war. That's how we want our music to sound.” Noiseshaper's remixes effortlessly transport this message. The most prominent musicians to get a Noiseshaper remix so far have been Sly & Robbie, which is another giant accolade.

The band worked their magic on “Vice Vanity”, giving it a decisively different spin. Another remix that displays the band's sheer class is their version of Ari Up's weird “Me Done”, which they chiselled into a stomping blues rock-reggae track. And that brings us back to the title of this CD: where others have to constantly assert their “realness”, Axel Hirn and Florian Fleischmann simply are “real”.
And as Noiseshaper they capture this on tape: From Real To Reel.