4hero Release Their Long Awaited New Album On Raw Canvas Records
4hero’s ‘Play With The Changes’, released on their Raw Canvas label, is the duo’s first album in six years and coincidentally,marks their sixth album. It is a career that has garnered them critical acclaim, a Mercury Music Prize nomination, MOBO award and widespread respect from the music fratertnity.
Influenced by a variety of forces, from underground techno to Chicago soul, and intertwining live and electronic sounds, 4Hero's sound has been described as "futuristic soul music for real music heads."
‘Play With The Changes’ is a richly textured and musically complex album. While their early years saw 4hero's concentrate on Drum 'n Bass, 'Play With The Changes' is a genre defying mix of jazz, soul and electronica.It features a roll call of superior vocalists including Carina Andersson, Ursula Rucker, Jody Watley, Bembe Segue, Jack Davey and Larry Mizell (who has written and produced for the Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, among others). In fact, over 400 guests were called in to help on the album and you can find the full list in alphabetical order further down this news item.
4hero's Previous Work
4hero’s 1995 release ‘Parallel Universe’ set a precedent for successive drum and bass long players and was labelled NME album of the year. ‘Two Pages’, their debut album for Talkin' Loud was one of the most anticipated albums of it’s year and was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize and also won 4hero a MOBO award. 2001's ‘Creating Patterns’ explored more acoustic sounds and featured Jill Scott, soul-folk legend Terry Callier and 60's psychedelic poet Mark Murphy. As well as working with some of the great voices of soul, they set new standards as remixers and their stunning reinterpretation of Black Gold of the Sun caused Louie Vega label it "...one of the best remixes ever...".
Using various pseudonyms and through their own labels, (Reinforced, Raw Canvas, 2000 Black, Omniverse and Twisted Funk) Marc and Dego continue to venture into musical fields of their own invention.
Play With The Changes will be available on Raw Canvas through Inertia 27th January.
In alphabetical order, the 40+ guest vocalists, musicians, engineers that played a part in the creation of ‘Play With The Changes’
Akwasi Mensah
Andy Hamill
Bembe Segue
Brad Munn
Calina De La Mer
Carina Andersson
Chris Worsey
Darien Brockington
Dave Okumu
David Williams
Deborah Jordan
FACE
Fiona Brice
Jack Davey
Jason Yarde
Jo Archard
Joanne Davies
Jody Watley
Joe Bentley
Kaidi Tatham
Katherine Shave
Khrysis
Lady Alma
Larry Mizell
Luke Parkhouse
Mark Crown
Matt Lord
Matter
Micheal Leonhart
Paul Allen
Phonte
Reiad Chibah
Richard Spaven
Rodney Lee
Roslyn Stewart
Sarah Button
Talita Long
Terry Devos
Ursula Rucker
Vicky Matthews