Line-up: Richard Animashaun Thomas and Tony Anthun
Labels: Subtitles, Renegade Hardware, Certificate 18, Outbreak, G2, Fabric Live 03, Boombox, Kickin
City, country: Oslo, Norway
Biography
Future Prophecies (Richard Animashaun Thomas and Tony Anthun) are representatives of a new generation of Scandinavian drum and bass musicians. They perform both as DJs and as a live project together with a jazz orchestra. Their records have been released on Subtitles, Renegade Hardware, Certificate 18, Outbreak, G2, Fabric Live 03 (DJ Hype), Boombox and Kickin. They currently release material on their own label, Domination.
Richard Animashaun Thomas grew up in his grandfather’s house in Bjølsen (a suburb of Oslo, Norway). His grandfather was a well-known accordionist and had a huge influence on his grandson. At the age of 11, Richard began playing clarinet in a local orchestra. He soon switched to saxophone and, after several years of performing with rock, pop and jazz groups, entered a music college, where he studied for four years. During the same period, he began working in the studio. Traditional Western styles of music did not appeal to him, and, after selling everything except his saxophone, he went to India, where he began studying Indian classical music on the bansuri (Indian flute). After a year in India, Richard returned to Norway.
Tony was born in Oslo and grew up in Assbrokene (a suburb of Oslo). In 1984, he began playing at a local youth club. He played at weddings and friends’ parties, then at discos and local raves. Tony experimented with and played all kinds of music, but soon settled on broken rhythms and began collecting releases in that direction. Tony decided that electronic music was a combination of samples cut from various classical recordings. He began writing his own music, but soon changed his mind and acknowledged that broken rhythms were something more. He needed someone with a perfect knowledge of music theory, and that person was Richard. Tony invited him to work on material for his project—Huba Buba. Afterwards, they continued working together both in the studio and at parties as DJs. Their work was duly appreciated by the labels Boombox, Kickin, Black Jesus and Quiet Riot, where their 12-inch releases appeared. Recognition for their music prompted them to launch their own label, Domination, where Richard and Tony released an EP as the project Poetry.
After several years of studio work and regular performances at local clubs, as well as tours of Europe and the United States with other Norwegian acts, they began releasing their material on Certificate 18 and Teebee’s label Subtitles.
Today, Future Prophecies are often in London. In their live performances, they use a computer, saxophone, drums and synthesizers. This is how they describe their music:
“Our vision of music has no boundaries. We do what we feel at that moment. Our goal is to achieve complete freedom in music, to do what we want. Our style developed under the influence of R&B, pop, rock, jazz, Indian classical music, breakbeat, techno and house. Many people discuss various musical styles without even having any knowledge of them, following certain prejudices instead. We know that there is a lot of good (and bad) music in every genre—so why should we disregard particular styles? We try to use all styles and instruments in our music, whether saxophone, flute, vocals, guitar and so on. But in the end, we are trying to create something sensational and unique.”
Original: Jungle Voodoo (junglevoodoo.com). Translated from the Russian translation by Yegor.
