NEW MUSIC | DUR BRAIN ‘THE CRYSTAL FISTING CEREMONY’

By Rishma Dhaliwal • On Uncategorized, What is New

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Emer­ging from Bristol’s ever-expand­ing hip hop swamp, comes MC and pro­du­cer, Dur Brain, with his debut EP, The Crys­tal Fist­ing Cere­mony.

Hav­ing already estab­lished him­self on Bristol’s infam­ous live hip hop scene, through his rap­ping and drum­ming antics with the Bin­bag Wis­dom band, Dur Brain is now strik­ing out on a solo mis­sion with the arrival of his first EP.

Two singles from the pro­ject were giv­en life last year, includ­ing the with­er­ingly satir­ic­al, Spir­itu­al, which lam­pooned the quasi-spir­itu­al scene and the char­ac­ters you meet with­in it, which Bris­tol is a par­tic­u­lar hot­bed for. Rot­ten Bread, fea­tur­ing I.O.W. rap­per, Joe Pub­lik, took a more reflect­ive tone, as the two MCs traded verses that deal with philo­sophy, envir­on­ment­al fra­gil­ity and social com­ment­ary.

Those themes con­tin­ue through­out the rest of the EP, as well as some thoughts on the cur­rent polit­ic­al state of plays, some per­son­al reflec­tions and enough bursts of humour to keep the bal­ance right.

The EP is mainly self-pro­duced, aside from the open­ing track, Pickled Eyes, which fea­tures pro­duc­tion from Azlan, who brings a dis­tinctly sunny vibe to the beat, which is a good anti­dote for these grey days. That vibe con­tin­ues on Clar­ity, which also fea­tures a guest spot from MC Bin­bags. Else­where, we find sax­o­phone strains, flour­ishes of strings and pre­ci­sion cuts, all feed­ing into the pro­ject and giv­ing it an air of music­al­ity, which is often lack­ing from the aver­age hip hop pro­ject.

A video for Spir­itu­al was released last year, filmed on loc­a­tion in Bris­tol and Goa. Check it here.

The EP is going to be avail­able on digit­al release ini­tially, with the pos­sib­il­ity of a vinyl edi­tion in the future.

Bass on tracks 2,3,5,6 by Harry Stone­ham (Waldo’s Gift)

Viol­in by Calum Smith (Young Waters)

Scratch­ing on track 1,2,5,6 by Jam­ie Chick­en (Chick­en Broth­ers)

 

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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About Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal
Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless. Currently working in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media knowledge to I am Hip Hop and other projects by No Bounds.