AZukx
AZukx - five letters chosen to put a name to this music, which was made from lots of experiences and emotions felt for the first time between February and December '94. It was born in Whirl-Y-Gig, where it has continued to grow, inspired by the unity and fundamental energy found there by so many.....(taken from the inside cover of Everything is Everything).
To describe the sound of AZukx is very difficult - uplifting tribal/folk/trance music are words that spring to mind. Their style is completely unique, incorporating the sounds of Djumbies and bongo's with the more conventional sounds of modern muzik technology, resulting in this Whirl-Y-Gig born group exploding in popularity in the London area. After playing many live sets at Whirl-Y-Gig, appearing at Return to the Source in London and at the Reading WOMAD festivals, the group were eventually signed to
Mantra records in '95, and released one album and two singles. The new album, which has just been released on the Whirl-Y-Music record label, is said to be inspired by the groups travelling around Ireland. This is a new generation of dance music - intelligent dance music - music designed to lift.
Album: Everything is Everything
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Released 1995 on Mantra Records. The debut album from AZukx can only be described as storming! It's a collection of wonderfully trancy/folky bouncy tunes that is guaranteed to have you in a good mood in minutes. The opening track 'Lift' is the AZuxk anthem, a powerful hands-in-the-air track with a lovely sample in it about music lifting very depressed hearts. Its one of those tunes that you hear and instantly want to know what it is, a tune that stands out from the rest at the end of a long night clubbing and its a tune which remains lodged in your brain so that you end up humming it all day long. The various remixes on the single don't compare to the original Future Mix, but are still worth a listen. '124-Stomp' isn't quite as stomping as the title suggests, not the album version anyway, but contains this lovely sample of children chanting and plods along at a pleasant pace. 'Tranquillity' is a long, looping track which slowly builds up. This track was used a couple of times to open their live sets and worked quite well. 'Lamb' is a really slow track; dreamy melody and clattering drums, more chanting and vocal samples....you are told that "life is happy", and then a sudden change as a beat stomps in and the track becomes a stomping march - all very clever and makes this quite a fun track! 'Martha's Dance' picks up the pace again. I heard this track on a TV advertisement for a wildlife program on dolphins, and that's the picture that this track conjures up now; dolphins playing and leaping in the water. 'One Tribe' has got to be my favourite track on this album, if not a very close second place to 'Lift'. This is folk dance music at its extreme best. If you are not leaping around to this track by the end of it, then this probably means your vital life signs are very low. And 'Euphoria' closes this album in an ambient style, a very beautiful ambient style. This is one of the few albums that I could honestly give a 10/10 rating for.
Single: Lift
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Released 1995 on Mantra Records. The first single to be released from the album is 'Lift'. The original Future Mix remains far superior to the remixes, but Joi (another Whirl-Y-Gig group) provide some fun new life to this track, while Reeperbahns effort may be appreciated by those who care for the more experimental/diverse side of dance music. As the chimes strike out and an old wise voice tells us that music was designed to lift very depressed hearts....in a very over-laden world, shivers of euphoria tingle down your spine. This track is a work of genius and will remain an anthem at the top of my chart of all time favourite tracks for quite some time. The original Whirl-Y-Gig mix of 'Lift' has been released on the Whirl-Y-Waves Compilation.
Single: 124 Stomp/Mad Cow
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Released 1996 on Mantra Records. The second single to be released from the album and it contains a little surprise, in the form of a very hard trance little number which will have you stomping all the way to Goa and back - enter the 'Mad Cow'. Played a number of times in their live sets, this track is very different to AZukx's previous material, in that it leaves the bouncy type trance scene and leaps straight into the pounding world of goa/psychedelia that has been growing in the UK. At first I didn't like it much, but like most harder dance music, once I'd heard it live and danced till I thought I was going to drop, I loved it! The Transformation remix of 1-2-4 Stomp gets a similar treatment and converts this track up into the realms of psychedelia, but thankfully still contains the chorus of children chanting which graces the original album version. 'Mad Cow' will feature on the forthcoming album 'Mind Nature'.
Album: Mind Nature
[Whirl2]
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The long overdue second album from AZukx was eventually released on Whirl-Y-Music in July '99, coinciding with a live gig at the Reading WOMAD Festival. Most of the material on this album was written when AZukx were in Ireland back in '96, but due to differences in opinions with Mantra the album wasn't released. Hence, 3 years later it sees the light of day on the Whirl-Y-Music label, which is kind of fitting, given that AZukx was born at Whirl-Y-Gig. Moving on from 'Everything is Everything', this album explores other area's of trance. Most notable is the hard-trance content, which is found in the middle section of the album with tracks 'Templeboy', 'Time and the Orange', 'Joe2' and 'Madcow'. Both 'Templeboy' and 'Madcow' are very strong tracks and have been forming a core section of recent live performances. It's impossible not to notice that this hard-trance sound is slightly dated, given that back in '96 most of the UK were dancing to the sounds of psychedelic trance, and now in '99 the hard trance scene isn't as big as it was then. But nonetheless, these tracks are superb, acid 303 fuelled stompers. The rest of the album is much more chilled and relaxed, the best of which are 'Heal Yourself', which features vocals from Gary, and the superb 'Spiral Song'. This latter track has close analogies to 'One Tribe' (from Everything is Everything), where folk elements combined with Uilleann pipes result is a wonderfully uplifting, bouncy track. The closing track, 'Lighthouse', is soothing and ambient, which is what is needed after the four hard-trance tracks. This whole album is far more varied (in terms of BPM) than its predecessor and much more dance orientated, which makes up for the lack of clever originality that 'Everything is Everything' possessed. It's good to have AZukx back!
Mind Nature is available on CD from Whirl-Y-Music.
An AZukx collaboration with Natious has been released on Inversus Records under the artist and title of Tag featuring AZukx - The Arrahant (10/01).
Natious has released a version of 'Lift' on Bluestone Records [BS002].
The original Whirl-Y-Gig mix of 'Lift' has also been released on the Whirl-Y-Waves Vol.1 Compilation and the Natious Remix of 'Lift' on Whirl-Y-Waves Vol.2 Global Grooves.
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