Timo Maas: Slick Shift for Timo
Author: Gareth Shaw @ Music-Mag.co.uk
Monday, April 29, 2002
After the Top 15 success of the grindingly dirty 'To Get Down', and delightfully protean debut album 'LOUD', Timo Maas returns on April 29th with the cool electro-garage-funk of 'Shifter', featuring the icily lithe vocal talents of a certain MC Chickaboo.
Shifter is released on April 29th.
Over an alarmingly futuristic vortex of Timo's wub 'n' hard beats, idiosyncratic squelches and teutonic techno-trickery, Chickaboo - a Grace Jones for the UK garage generation - comes across both whisperingly suggestive and nonchalantly seductive: "We're so slick we slip and slide."
And no-one can accuse 'Shifter' of simply carrying on from where 'To Get Down' left off: you'd be hard pushed to find a guitar riff or grungy vocal across the four slither-some minutes of this slippery classic.
Timo finally crashed into the mainstream earlier this year with the aforementioned 'To Get Down', which peaked at No. 14 in the charts, and, with its enigmatic and disturbingly elusive promo, prompted some speculation in the mainstream press as to whom this new mystery act actually was. Was it a band- Or a solo act-
The answer's both of course, as Timo Maas the act consists of both the superstar DJ/ producer and his (studio) partner in crime, Martin Buttrich, with whom he has co-written and produced the critically acclaimed LOUD, which also features collaborations with Kelis and Finlay Quaye.
And Chickaboo- This Birmingham-born, ex-Blue Note MC is one girl with something on her mind: "Shifter is about sex. Slippy, sleazey sex. It's about me being different, it's about all the different sides to my personality, it's about shape-shifting, it's about confidence, it's about believing you can get any person in the world." Heartbreaka-
Timo is currently on the road, touring the UK's student and alternative rock venues, with his customized 10 ft steel and glass DJ booth. He is supported by Starecase and Jean Jacques Smoothie.
Tags