Rhombus - Jamming with the New Rhombus Sounds
Author: Melanie Selby
Three years ago Rhombus exploded on to the New Zealand music scene with their unique, fresh blend of Aotearoa dub 'n bass, fused with hip hop and jazz.
Featuring some of the country's most creative MCs in the line up, their debut album 'Bass Player' went platinum and picked up the Best Album and Best Electronic Release at the 2003 bNet music awards. First single Clav Dub quickly became the song of the summer and was supported by that video - the one with the yellow Mini cruising around Wellington, which was directed by Chris Graham. Runner up as Best Video at the 2002 NZ Music Video Awards, it also won a trophy at the 2003 bNets.
'Future Reference' is a massive step forward from the popular debut. It is diverse in material, rich in production, features some outstanding contributors and proves Rhombus remain a force to be reckoned with. A force albeit that has gone through many changes on the road to this second album.
According to producers Simon Rycroft and Thomas Voyce, one of the fundamental differences with 'Future Reference' is the live band aspect. Session musicians including Darren Mathiassen on drums and Steve Gallagher on keys have helped the band move away from the electronic-based beats of the first album to a live rhythm section. In the past Voyce has drawn the keyboard straw while Rycroft
managed the beats. Having found that a little boring, Voyce is pleased to have moved on to bass - his instrument of choice.
"It's such an amazing transformation having a live rhythm section," says Rycroft enthusiastically. "I just send a click track out to Darren and he basically has this metronome in his ear. He has this amazing ability to play any groove you give him. Even if it's something that Tom and I have bashed out on a shonky kit tirelessly for 10 minutes in the basement, and then gone into Pro Tools and gone 'Oh that little loop there, that sounds good'. He'll just listen to that and play it in exactly the same groove the whole way through the track."
Rycroft and Voyce, then Mahal and Koa Williams have been the foundation of Rhombus since its formative stages. Williams and Mahal both also take production credits along with Rycroft and Voyce, with Williams also wearing the manager hat and Mahal providing key vocals. All four are the directors of their label Rhombus Music Ltd.
Voyce explains. "We're a collective of people. It started out with just me and Simon, but we've got more people on board and we're a band and it's extended. Like we've got Michael Tuffrey who has done the artwork on the CD and he's getting involved with our live performance, so we're gradually
expanding the whole thing up."
Rhombus is its own constantly evolving galaxy of stars. 'Future Reference' adds guest artists including stalwart MCs and vocalists Mana, Antsman and Raashi along with the new addition of Lisa Tomlins (who has performed with other core Wellington outfits including TrinityRoots, Recloose and Fat Freddy's Drop).
"I think it (the new album) came out of live performances really," she explains. "They (Voyce and Rycroft) already had the crux of it there but it just sort of grew out of a few new additions to the collective, particularly for the vocalists. I just went on tour with these guys for a bit as a backing vocalist but then started jamming on a few things and the next thing you know they were refining their ideas and I ended up on the album."
While 'Future Reference' is significantly different musically from 'Bass Player', the creative process hasn't really changed according to Rycroft.
"This is one scenario. Tom and I are providing some sort of backing for a live kind of context and we'll just play it and the MCs will jam over the top, show after show after show, and something comes together. That will often become the chorus or hook, line and chorus for the track which then gets on the album. That will continue to happen and is something that's really important to Rhombus - the way we improvise on stage, particularly with MCs. So even with a full live band our set is a lot more polished now,".
So why the wait for 'Future Reference'? Apparently the album was finished last summer (2003/4), but after re-listening to it Rycroft and Voyce decided it wasn't quite there. "It opened a whole can of worms for us," says Rycroft wryly.
"Basically we used a lot of the material that we'd taken for those original recordings but I guess we rushed it a bit too much. We went through and revisited a lot of the remixes and changed some of the songs and that's pretty much what we were doing for the better half of last year."
Like 'Bass Player', 'Future Reference' was recorded in a number of places, including Japan (where Voyce lived from 2001 to 2003), the Galaxy Bus (their studio in Wellington before the building was turned into council flats), Marmalade Studios, Durham Street and a flat in Brooklyn.
Putting together of the album is described by Rycroft as a "mammoth task".
"We were working on Pro Tools and had an LE system so we were limited in the amount of tracks we could use - there was a lot of juggling," explains Voyce.
Mastering was done by George Horn at USA's Fantasy Studios. They hooked this up through Mu as Horn had mastered some vinyl for Fat Freddy's Drop. He mastered a 12" for Rhombus and it came back sounding great so they got him to do the album as well as second 12" for which they are currently getting samples pressed.
"That's another area we've moved into (releasing vinyl). We've learnt a lot about mastering and the differences between producing tracks for vinyl and producing tracks for CD - that sort of stuff is fascinating to us geeks," laughs Voyce.
While 'Bass Player' went platinum and continues to sell, the band decided that network was no longer right for them. They had been in discussions with BMG's MD Mike Bradshaw and subsequently a two album licence deal was signed between the new Sony BMG and Rhombus Music Ltd in June 2005.
"It was just a new direction basically," explains Rycroft. "Everything is different - the whole structure of our business and musically it's all changed so much so I guess we were attracted to what BMG had to offer us before the merger."
The Sony BMG merger was responsible for more album hold ups but when Bradshaw was appointed MD for the company, the band were given the opportunity follow through with what they'd talked about. Rhombus are keen to release their albums overseas and international connections were another reason why Sony BMG appealed.
While touring what is now a 9 or10-piece band is challenging, Rhombus would like to get to Europe and play in some of the festivals next year.
"We're keen to get out there. After all the work we've put into the album we want to play it and tour it. For me that's where the hard work pays off," says Voyce.
For now they are planning a summer tour of New Zealand but it won't be long before the rest of the world is getting ready to Rhombus.
