Soundhog
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Soundhog (Ben Hayes) is a DJ, producer and composer of a number of acclaimed Bastard Pop songs. Based in North Wales, he is distinguished by his apparently encyclopaedic knowledge of popular music, which he draws on to concoct "A vs B" tracks that often cast familiar pop, hip hop and R'n'B vocals in a whole new light by using such unlikely "backing bands" as Focus and The Beatles.
Soundhog is also responsible for a notorious series of bootleg tracks released under the name "The Freelance Hairdresser" (a play on the name of Bastard Pop pioneer Freelance Hellraiser), the most famous of which pitted Eminem against a 1950s piano rag by Winifred Atwell; another laid the same vocal over a chopped-up mix of 1970s/1980s UK TV theme tunes.
Soundhog won critical acclaim for his December 2002 mix for BBC Radio Wales, which was described by its commissioner Adam Walton as "the most astonishing 30 minutes of radio I've ever broadcast".
In recent years he has created the "Radio Soundhog" series of mixes, which merge artists as diverse as Jon Hiseman's Colosseum, 808 State, Can (band), The Scorpions, Venetian Snares and Traffic Sound. These have often been broadcast on UK 'alternative' radio station XFM and the BBC. He has also released an official 12" single "Curdler", officially remixed artists and DJed throughout mainland Europe.
The name "Soundhog" was taken from a 1970s era blank cassette-tape made by EMI.
