CAST-A-BLAST // Making Beats Since 2006
Artists
PALOV & MISHKIN
Palov & Mishkin, grew up together as best buddies during an era of break-dance frenzy, cable wrestling fights and boom box anthems. Both of them cut their teeth on parks around home and school always searching for the next perfect move. Together they also formed their first band, a quartet which went very successful on various school nights. Around 1987 the duo had to split because of Mishkin’s sudden move to a different school in a faraway town. They went separate ways and no one ever heard news from the other for almost 20 years. Some contacts had been made in several occasions but none was that strong to make them realize they should work together again. On March 2006 luck brought them together inside the same taxi…. And so they met again.
Up to now, P & M have released records with G.A.M.M. enterprices, Cast-a-Blast, Scribble, Rebtuz and Resence. They have also remixed for the Hot 8 Brass Band and Lovemonk’s Mas Achillyfunk.
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LARRY GUS
Panagiotis Melidis (born and grew up in Veria, Greece) started to write music as Larry Gus (larigas: greek for throat, larynx) in 2006, inspired by the rural enviroment of his hometown. His early influences have been Creedence Clearwater Revival and Minor Threat. He had been member of the seminal bass and drums duo Ginger, fusing hardcore punk aesthetics and hip hop beats. When Ginger broke up, he started composing music for TV commercials, which were in fact his first works as Larry Gus. Later on, he got his name due to some chaotic live perfomances, incorporating live looping techniques in an improvised pop manner.
He has played alongside Caribou, Ariel Pink, !!!, Deadbeat, John Maus, Mike Slott and has also participated at the 2nd Athens Biennial and 2nd Nuit Blanche à Metz. Recently, he has resided at the Music Technology Group of Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (Reactable,Freesound) as a postgraduate student.
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BNC (Bruises n Cuts)
Born in the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo, arrived in Greece for the first time at the early age of 10, keeping cross-cultural ties with his native land, New York City and Athens Greece, kept an ear for music and passion for its production.
Having begun as a drummer in his teenage years in bands ranging from garage punk to Ska and Reggae, transformed the same energy and diversity today in sampling, beat making, producing and Lyricism. Actively involved in the Athenian Dj scene spinning sets in Funk, Hip- hop Reggae and Latin breaks, BnC maneuvers the set like a percussionist and Turntabalist alike. BnC’s sound brings a fresh wave of sonic delight to the local scene and beyond.
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BILLA QAUSE
Born in 1979 in Athens, BQ liked to push buttons with sounds. From the age of 12 he started listening to hip hop and with time to all various sounds of the afro american culture with his friend Melik. In 1996 he was the MC and producer for the hip hop group A.K.P.A. In 2002 together with DJ Mcd, they formed Neverland, chilled out productions with the project ‘Dreams’ from Planetworks. In 2005 he was featured in the collection Sound of Everything ”Hellectronic 01” with the track ”ELECTRONOVA” featuring Romero Miller. He has collaborated with artists such as MELODIQ, R.A.H., VICKDA CREED. Since 2008, he is a member of the 4 piece group NEIGHBOURS as a DJ and live beatmaker and also an artist of CAST-A-BLAST. His latest work featured on Multi Vitamins release MV16 is the track ”PARTY”.
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SUGAHSPANK!
Sugahspank! was born in Pireaus, Greece in 1982. Started making music and performing in the age of 14 through various underground acts. Showing interest in many and dramatically different music genres, Sugahspank! started combining hip-hop, soul and funk with garage, rapcore, nu-metal and jazz, always looking for an experimental edge.
In 2004 she joined the band Sugah Galore and two years later she formed Cast-a-Blast along with Blend, Palov and BnC. In 2008 she released her debut album “The Incredible/ The invisible” on Cast-a-Blast. She also appears in CAB’s older releases Blend “Misplaced” and “Backslam Extravaganza” Selected by Palov & Mishkin.
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BLEND aka MISHKIN
Born January ’74, in Athens, Greece, producer, Dj and co-founder of Cast-a- blast label, Blend aka Mishkin is an authority on alliances, partnering, and coalitions.
His Album history manages to absorb, entertain, and interest all sorts of listeners, and continues to do so at a rapid pace. Latest albums «Sudden Death (a field guide)» and «Think Twice» by Palov & Mishkin is the perfect example of his everlasting need for diversity.
During 2005 he forms the «Blend Sextet», a six piece band in need to perform his work live and by 2006 he and fellow dj Palov unite to create the infamous Palov & Mishkin dj duet and re-edit extraordinaires. In the same year Blend co-founds label/collective Cast-a-Blast based in Athens, which is expanding worldwide with a swift growth of releases and a remarkable list of artists.
Since 1998 he has been releasing records, some of them in highly aclaimed labels such as N.Y’s Shadow records, Cooking /Good Looking (UK), Pork (UK), Gamm Enterprises inc (Swe), Rebtuz/Tru Thoughts (UK) and Lovemonk (SP) to name a few.
His remix collaborations include Wax Tailor, The Hot 8 Brass Band, Natasha Atlas, Dj Spooky, Libra music, Featurecast, Bastard Jazz, Pallyria, The Earthbound, Kbonus, and many more His production work in studio consists various artists such as reggae band Tootsie Babes, percussionist Mohamed Arrafa, Duke Abduction & vocalist Sugahspank!.
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THE KIDD
The Kidd was born in Athens in 1979. At the age of 5 his family moved to New York and ever since he has lived back and forth between Athens, New York and Los Angeles. He started his affair with music at 11 when he started playing the drums. He spent most of his adolescence playing in bands ranging from punk to funk and most things in between. His transgression to rhyming as a way of exploring rhythm was only natural.
In 2001 he became the resident MC for the Smoothplayaz party promotion team performing with DJ’s WhoAmI, Everlast , Sparky T and Anna Mystic, as well as many from the international scene, like Canada’s premier Hip Hop DJ - Starting from Scratch as well as London based artists Maxi Jazz (Faithless), Spkey T, Keith Lawerence (Musik-Ed) and Seanie T (Dark Horizon). He hosted an internet radio show with his close friend WhoAmI on interfaceradio.com and a prime time saturday night slot on Athens Radio DeeJay 95.2 for Smoothplayaz.
In 2009 he met Blend, who was preparing the “Sudden Death” album, and ended up with two solo tracks “My Thing” and “Funk Fanatic” and on “All Up In SSSS” with BnC.
Kidd is now a core member of the Cast-a-Blast Sound System live show and preparing material to be featured on the labels upcoming releases. §
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ELEPHANT PHINIX
Born in 1986 in sunderland UK ,city of the black cats, moved to Greece at an early age. Always was a music lover but the attraction towards the microphone and rapping started from just freestylin over beats and makin tracks with friends like dj noaone at the age of 18.’athens burns ‘ was the beginnig for him and the graffiti crew it represented and that helped him think out of the box and see rappin from a more serious prospective and give more attention to the lyrics.
Along with a group of friends they released an album called ‘psyclowns’ in 2006 and in 2008 with the same group of artists an album called ‘fulleffekt-take as needed’ in 2009 he met blend and their passion for sticky green poetry had the conclusion of 4 tracks on blends ’sudden death’.one of the tracks from the album ‘press forward ‘ is also released featuring remixes from producers such as bnc,palov,ekelon,bq & jmelik,turntable dubbers and more.In the past years he opened for groups and artists such as jeru the damaja.sadat x of brand nubian,diamond d,2mex of LA s legendary project blowed crew,b real of cypress hill & psycho realm and birdy num num.
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THE OTTAWA BROS
Lee roy Johnson – Bass & Backing Vocals
Pat Makita – Keyboards & Chains
Dannya Matulo – Guitars & Noises
Tray “Intense” Barreto – Drums
Dj Oxocube, the extractor, ties it all together for the soundtrack. A hideous amount of editing, processing, programming (and de-programming) was involved in the process.
Sorry, no further information is available for the Ottawa Bros
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