Ouverture Du Rideau  (l’interlude De Qualité) / Abbesses Live / Ready For War, Ready For Whut? / Pass It On /  Too Much Skunk Tonight / Too Much Screw / Stephane / Body, Mind, Spirit / Kind Of Laid Back / Escape / Violons Part 1 / Violons Part 2 / In Thunder Lighting Or In Rain?  / Tam Tam Club / Poppy / Abbesses (Acoustic Version) / Jam Session / Stéphane / Ready For War, Ready For Whut ? / Pass It On / Too Much Skunk Tonight / Poppy / Violons Part 1/ Abesses / Kind Of Laid Back / In Thunder Lightining Or In Rain ? /  Violons part 2 / Tam Tam Club / Jam Session

UNCIVILIZED WORLD

This live CD and DVD package from French dance outfit Birdy Nam Nam showcases the quartet in action at La Cigale, Paris in June 2006.  Made up of underground veterans, Little Mike, DJ Need, DJ Pone and Crazy B, Birdy Nam Nam show off some formidable turntable moves here; spinning out a collection of classy jazz fuelled techno that finds the outfit in fine form, proving just what a superb live experience they can be.

With opener STEPHANE, they concoct a darkly addictive soundscape of mutant electro blips and bleeps whilst follow up READY FOR WAR, READY FOR WHUT? highlights a more melodic and progressive edge, synth like stabbing riffs rubbing up against fractured beats and booming atmospherics.  The jittery TOO MUCH SKUNK TONIGHT pits them as a French take on The Chemical Brothers, indulging themselves in the same sense of anthemic techno wizardry; crowd pleasing blips and bleeps building to skronky crescendos of electroid madness.

With POPPY, Birdy Nam Nam groove into more jazz funk territory, electric guitar flourishes and wah wah drenched keyboard effects showcasing the quartets muso tendencies and moving their sound way beyond the four turntables and a microphone set up.  The Balkan Gypsy shuffle of VIOLONS PART 1 sees them edge into new directions yet again, creating a sound more akin to the likes of Beirut or Gogol Bordello, whilst the crowd pleasing ABBESSES throbs with a thrusting bass rumble and fracturous turntabalist skills.

Disappointingly, KIND OF LAID BACK sees Birdy Nam Nam delivering worthy jazz blues clichés; a track that with its smooth piano chords and walking bassline feels almost like an excuse to prove themselves serious musicians amidst all the turntable and beats business.  Its in this kind of territory though, that Birdy Nam Nam reside for the remainder of LIVE, the self describing JAM SESSION an eleven minute plus bongo and beats affair that ends things with more of a whimper than a bang.

Despite the fizzle out towards the second half of the set into worthy jazz funk muso territory, LIVE showcases Birdy Nam Nam as a formidable live act; a CD and DVD package well worth investigating for anyone interested in progressive dance music.

BIOGRAPHY

Birdy Nam Nam is a group of French DJs: Little Mike, DJ Pone, DJ Need and Crazy B. And while those names have been around in the French underground for ages, on the posters for the biggest soirées or behind illustrious rap groups (particularly DJ Pone, who officiated in the shadow of Triptik and now accompanies Svinkels, or Crazy B, formerly hidden behind Alliance Ethnik), they also shine on the podiums of the international deejaying championships. So during the 1990's, the Americans DJ Q-Bert, Craze or A-Trak, used to appearing in the rankings, had to compromise with the young guard of French deejaying, led by such crews as Scratch Aktion Hiro, who won the world title in the year 2000. That is the gigantic mutant crew that gave rise to Birdy Nam Nam, a group of 4 scratcher brothers trained for the 2002 World Championship, which they won right in stride.

But afterwards? After the competitions, the titles, after the honors and the podium tops? Fortified by solo or team awards, a product of the most frantic kind of "turntablism", these unconquered characters do not stop halfway through. And even if they don't have to prove anything else in competition, having left the circuit in 2002, they continue walking up and down over the grooves of thousands of records. In the spirit of the American turntable experts (D-Styles, Excess, ...), raping obscure jazz records, appropriating the sole music of the 1970's and a few good breakbeats, they select just the right loop, the right rhythm, the perfect texture, which they expertly assemble. Like a six-minute free style number as a mandatory part of the World Championships, they are now giving birth to an initial album with no identifiable format. No compulsory figures here, and no time limitation. The symphony becomes the raw material, and Birdy Nam Nam's fingers develop a sound that is its alone.

Birdy Nam Nam is the fruit of a logical development, the one that led Q-Bert from the World Championships to the Wave Twister album, the one that leads all instrumentalists from technique to music. That is the interest of their work. In going beyond technique, the abandonment of the hyper-technical scratch sections, which they can also handle. Instead of this, these turntables devils concoct some disturbing recipes, some stable, controlled and coherent compositions. 

Alternately gloomy or funky, shot through with electronic acids and methodical cuts, the Birdy Nam Nam sound doesn't give a dam about plucking a guitar or belting a cord on a Rhodes. It's able to decapitate the trumpets and slash the pianos, and its records contain the entire history of music. Pushing back the limits of that raw material, these merciless crate-diggers deliver temperate music, a jewel of vinyl composition that owes as much to DJ Shadow as to Sun Ra, as much to the electronic experts of the 1990's as to the 1980's rap producers. Those four no longer play records, they play music. 

Even if listening to the album doesn't tell much about the composition techniques, the DVD part enlightens us about the work of the DJ filmed in situ, in the studio or on the stage. Live versions of the album titles or recent unpublished numbers perfectly adapted to the stage, these visual complements give us a close-up of the secret weapons of the 4 sound producers. Increased by comments about the members' careers and interviews, this DVD offers a necessary and detailed look into the universe of this extraordinary crew. 

LINE UP

DJ Pone

DJ Need

Crazy B

Little Mike

DISCOGRAPHY

BIRDY NAM NAM (Uncivilized World>2006)

READY FOR WAR, READY FOR WHUT?

BODY, MIND, SPIRIT...

TOO MUCH SKUNK TONIGHT 

TRANSITION

KIND OF LAID BACK

JAZZ IT AT HOME 

WE DRUMMIN’

ESCAPE

L’INTERLUDE DE QUALITÉ

ENGINEER FEAR

RAINSTORMING

IL Y A UN CAUCHEMAR DANS MON PLACARD (Feat. D-Styles & Mike Boo)

MIGRATION

ABBESSES 

NEW STEPS/BREAKING BARRIERS

FROM HERE TO THERE

LIVE (Uncivilized World>2007)

OUVERTURE DU RIDEAU  (L’INTERLUDE DE QUALITÉ)

ABBESSES LIVE 

READY FOR WAR, READY FOR WHUT? 

PASS IT ON

TOO MUCH SKUNK TONIGHT 

TOO MUCH SCREW 

STEPHANE 

BODY, MIND, SPIRIT 

KIND OF LAID BACK  

ESCAPE 

VIOLONS Part 1 

VIOLONS Part 2

IN THUNDER LIGHTING OR IN RAIN? 

TAM TAM CLUB 

POPPY 

ABBESSES (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 

JAM SESSION 

LINKS

Birdy Nam Nam>www.birdynamnam.com

FURTHER LISTENING

The Chemical Brothers

Ozomatli

Chris Coco