Kem
Kem is Jeff Mishima from Portland, Oregon, USA. He’s DJed breakbeat since 2002 in the Portland area, holding down a residency at the locally infamous Virus! breaks weekly during the peak of nuskool and playing alongside a who’s who of international breaks artists along the way, stateside and beyond.
He’s released tracks on seven labels, hosted breaks shows on online radio sites such as BreaksFM and iBreaks, been featured in Rinse magazine, and has had tracks featured on breaks shows from Crystal Method’s Community Service to Annie Nightingale’s BBC Radio 1 breaks show.
Kem returns to the breaks scene in early 2012 with two new releases on Unstable Label: Come Up and Get Down.
The Rumblist
With influences across the board from the Prodigy through to Aphex Twin as well as from more melodic artists and composers such as Plaid and Yoko Kanno, his output covers a broad range of sounds and is described most easily as “good electronic music”. Whether your interest lies in twisted electronica, glitched out amen’s or high energy breakbeat, he will deliver the goods.
He has a proven track record in live performance, playing across the UK at various events, and has seen his own music released on labels such as VirusB-23 and Click Click Drone (both no longer around), as well as remixes released on Boltfish Records. More recently, The Rumblist appears on the award winning Definition:breaks label with remixes for the CoolBreakerZ, A2C, Sinners Inc and the mighty Physical Bross!
2012 sees The Rumblist with his debut EP on Digital Sensation UK, as well as featuring on Future Jungle Expeditions Vol.2 on Top Drawer Digital. Next up will be a remix of a Hoffman and Savannah tune on Unstable Label, as well as a 2 track EP coming soon! Later in the year, The Rumblist will also be dropping remixes and new tunes on Soundbreak Records and Definition:breaks.
Hoffman
Harking from the sleepy suburb of Salisbury, UK, Hoffman started his musical journey as a young high school kid with his Commodore Amiga computer.
Writing endless amounts of music in his favourite software, Pro-Tracker, he dabbled with computer game music back in the early 90′s. An early love of electronic music through artists like Kraftwerk and Jean Michael Jarre, meant a natural progression through to Rave and underground music was inevitable. This journey lead him to his first set of turntables where he mastered the art of mixing Techno. He held a 6 year residency at his local night club Freedom Sound with his fellow DJ Markus where they pushed the boundries of their DJ performance by using multiple turntables, laptops and effects.
Further progression came from the emerging Nu-Skool Breaks scene in early 2005 when Hoffman released his first breaks track, Everybody on Unstable Label. The tracks anthemic sound took the scene by storm getting massive plays from the top names in breaks. Shortly after the release, label boss Era asked Hoffman to join the management of Unstable Label and the pair continued to drive the party breakbeat sound.
During this time with DJ pal M0del101, the pair created dance floor devastation all over the UK and in Europe with their party breaks sound. They also hosted one of the most popular radio shows on the now multi award winning NSB Radio.
When label boss Era left the fold, Hoffman put the label on hiatus. During this time Hoffman made a return to his roots in the Demoscene and his old Commodore Amiga. Once again firing up the ProTracker software, he applied all that he learnt from Techno and Breaks to push the limits of the machine further than he ever did before and has won multiple competitions as a result. He also released his 8-Bit Jungle music disk, an hour long jungle mix produced on the Amiga, which has been well received across the scene and beyond.
But now Hoffman is back, bigger and badder than before with the newly re-vamped Unstable Label. He now hosts the Unstable Radio show on NSB Radio on the 2nd and 4th Monday of every month, 7pm – 9pm.
SaVannaH
SaVannaH, quoted by some as being “The Queen of Tearout Breaks”, has built a reputation within the scene for her skills on the decks and no holds barred sets.
Coming from a heavy rock background, & branching out into a bit of indie every now and again, it was seeing The Prodigy supporting Oasis at Knebworth 1997, that really changed the musical path she was on.
Growing up in a small town in Yorkshire, with zero scene of any kind, it was when she went to study in Manchester that really opened her eyes to the eclectic mix of music out there, which she fully embraced – a different genre for each night of the week!
She started out mixing old skool drum n bass and was still frequenting rock clubs regularly. It was clear that her music of choice had to be tougher then the norm. Gradually as her tastes changed, it became more about melodies and soulfulness and when the liquid funk scene was emerging in Manchester in 2000 she was bang on it.
She dabbled a bit in breaks, but not enough to get fully involved, and none of the tunes she bought really captivated her like drum n bass. It wasn’t until she went along to legendary night “Fuse” at the Roadhouse in Manchester that she first heard tearout breaks, and was struck by its full on toughness, yet with beautiful melodies and knew then that she would never look back.
She’s headlined many all girl nights up and down the UK and held residencies at ‘Payload’ in London & ‘F(r)action’ Southampton playing alongside some of the scene’s biggest names. Festival regular, and now working alongside partner in crime Hoffman they are representing the South’s finest in underground breakbeat. Can be seen regularly rockin the parties at The Music Box Salisbury, Pist ‘n’ Bass Andover, and King Alfred Southampton
They have done remix work for Definition Breaks & Distorsion Records, cheeky free bootlegs (available on soundcloud) and are currently working on more fresh material for Unstable Label and others.
Accepting no half measures and producing and running the label just for the shear fun of it, staying true to what they love…….They are a force to be reckoned with.