Hybrid (producers)
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Hybrid are a British electronic music group based in Swansea, formed around the duo of Mike Truman and Chris Healings. They are primarily known as a progressive breaks act, although they overlap considerably with progressive house and trance.
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[edit] History
Their first album Wide Angle (released in 1999) garnered attention for its combination of progressive house and nu skool breaks with vocals and symphonic textures (they hired the Russian Federal Orchestra for the string sections). Julee Cruise supplied many of the vocals for Wide Angle. The album was produced and written by the duo along with the third 'original' band member, Lee Mullin. The music's cinematic feel and scope have led to comparisons with Massive Attack and Underworld. Hybrid also supported Moby during a live tour in 2000.
They then returned to a period concentrating on making dancefloor-oriented singles and remixes. They are known as prolific remixers, listing over 100 remixes of over 40 artists, including Radiohead, Alanis Morissette, BT, DJ Rap, The Orb, Jean Michel Jarre, The Future Sound Of London, UNKLE, Moby, and The Crystal Method. An album's worth of these remixes were digitally mixed and released as a CD in 2001.
For the follow up to their first album, 2003's Morning Sci-Fi, they added semi-permanent vocalists and guitarists, Adam Taylor and Tim Hutton (both on the album and when performing live) with a guest appearance from New Order alumnus Peter Hook. This album had a generally darker feel to it than Wide Angle, though still retaining the cinematic undertones for which Hybrid are known. In addition to this, Morning Sci-Fi features a more diverse range of influences than its predecessor — Chris Healings stating in an interview that: "We've been listening to absolutely anything other than dance music. I suppose that is because dance music is so ingrained into what we do naturally. We've been listening to stuff like The Doves, Radiohead, Soulwax, New Order and lots of jangly indie guitar bands and classical music, particularly the work of Arvo Part and Alexander Gretchaninov."
Three of Hybrid's songs were featured on In The Groove 2, a popular dance arcade game, which was released on June 18, 2005. The songs by Hybrid included on this game are "Know Your Enemy", "Out of the Dark", and "Visible Noise".
On July 31, 2006 they released the EP for I Choose Noise with 3 tracks featuring well known vocalists Kirsty Hawkshaw and Perry Farrell. The epic symphonic sound of these pieces seemed to confirm a return to the grand orchestral scope of Wide Angle, but with a slight hint of Morning Sci-Fi.
In their latest and third original album I Choose Noise released on September 4, 2006, they returned to the grander symphonic style of Wide Angle. A short symphonic track "In Good We Trust", featured on their Y4K album (a compilation of other artists selected by Hybrid) was taken by many as evidence of this approach. The Distinctive records web site has made a track entitled "Just for Today" from the new album available for free to registered users.
Hybrid played at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 29, 2006.
[edit] Trivia
Hybrid is the group that suggested to Linkin Park to adopt their name over their initial one, Hybrid Theory. Linkin Park would use the Hybrid Theory name as the title for their debut album instead.
In November 2006, one of Hybrid's songs 'All I Want' was featured in a Channel 4 advert for their show 'Unanimous'.
Hybrid's music has been frequently used in the motoring TV show Top Gear during the car reviews.
[edit] Discography
- Wide Angle (1999)
- Wider Angle (2000)
- Remix and Additional Production By... (2001)
- Morning Sci-Fi (2003)
- Y4K (2004)
- I Choose Noise (2006)
