- where / Christchurch
- what / Producer
- likes / Hip Hop
A new Trillion album 'This World and The Sadvipra Diversion' is pressed and due for release in about May 2004. more info see www.trillion.co.nz
here are a few reviews of the last album...
Trillion is the solo guise of Christchurch's Jody Lloyd (Dark Tower). The music of Trillion does not easily fit into any catagories, but mashes up styles/beats/samples in a totally absorbing blend.
Unlike Dark Tower, whose Canterbury Drafts depended on the snappy rhymes for much of its impact, At A Lucid End offers up musical machinations intriguing in their own right (although the words are not forgotten - check the excellent 'Show & Tell').
The other stand-out or me is the delightully silky 'Clouded part 1', but there is so much to explore here, it's hard to pick favourites. Easily, one of the year's best.
Nick Gormack - ChCh Press 14.8.03
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On the back it says that "a whole lot of mind body and soul went into the creation of At a Lucid End", and you can hear every ounce. This is conscious hip hop at its realest - the words address everyday life and hard learned philosophies. Whatever the word for the opposite of bling is, that's what this is.
The mood is downbeat, and all the tracks are really musical - there's a lot of instruments playing here and some wicked arrangements. At times, it?s not a million miles away from wahwah funky, Check Your Head era Beastie Boys, except it's a 110% New Zild product (no shout outs from Mobb Deep here...), right down to the scratchy kiwi vocal samples in 'For the Record'. This is from a man who sampled the Country Calendar theme song, after all.
A couple of standouts for me are the dirty analogue bass driven 'Farewell' (hints of Boards of Canada), and the gentle 'Show and Tell'. The breathy ?Something? (which featured on a capitalrecordings comp a year or two back) also sounds pretty money.
Overall, the quality of the production and songwriting here is fucking excellent. If the NZ market was a bit bigger, this would blow up big time. Who knows, maybe it still will - go get yourself a copy.
Ren Hoek - The Package
