Movement / Silence

DJ Devastate

For some people creating music all starts with a beat and a set goal to present sounds that touch your soul and make your head nod. This is a goal that’s truly being fulfilled by Producer/Turntablist DJ Devastate. Hailing from Helsingborg, a small town in the southern part of Sweden, DJ Devastate creates intricate sounds with classic production techniques. His introduction to Hip-Hop culture was back during the mid 90s “Golden Era”. The funky beats, rhymes and scratches being channeled at the time inspired him to become a part of the culture. His skills behind the turntables developed at a fast rate and DJ Devastate ended the 90s on the decks, often showcasing advanced scratching and mixing techniques. Spending a lot of time on stage and in the record stores, fueled his vision of creating and producing music. Dj Devastate’s production style started out simple but he had a firm dedication and determination to make strong quality music. Years in the studio led to collaborations and releases with Hip-Hop artists such as: Masta Ace, Kut Masta Kurt, Maylay Sparks, Stricklin, Ed O.G and Reef The Lost Cauze to name a few. These experiences further inspired DJ Devastate to create a new more personal and conceptual sound. The deep, soulful chords and harmonies of Jazz combined with the driving and organic sound of Funk were the leading inspiration for his new sound that quickly became a musical adventure. The goal was to create full length album, an instrumental fusion between Jazz, Funk and Hip-Hop. An important factor was to keep the whole project instrumental and to work with musicians instead of vocalists. The analog sound of vintage instruments and studio gear combined with the jazzy instrumentation and raw hip hop beat programming formed the music and made an idea into an album concept.

01 Start Movin’

02 The Motion ft. Silvia

03 Dont Stop ft. Segerfalk

04 A Days Work ft. Segerfalk & Fredrik Rixman

05 Movement/Silence ft. Segerfalk

06 Space & Time

07 Quiet Stream

08 Takin’ It Slow

09 Uncut Dope

10 Spinnin’ ft. Silvia, Svärd & DJ Create

11 Some Nights ft. Segerfalk

12 Spoken ft. Zoltan Csörsz JR

13 With The Groove ft. Segerfalk

14 The Sound ft. Segerfalk

Track-by-Track information (By: DJ Devastate)

01. Start Movin’

This track is the introduction, acquainting the listener to the first piece of this musical puzzle. My goal was to create a track that captured the sound and feeling of the whole album. In production I used some laid back instrumentation (Baseline & pads played by Fredrik Segerfalk) combined with a heavy drum loop. To get the concept across I also recorded a scratch wordplay encouraging the listener to “Keep it moving with the movement”.

02. The Motion

Motion and movement in the air is music. This track consists of a hard monotone drum pattern and wondering, almost hypnotic sounds. I tried to create a groove that felt like it just kept on going, with a chorus stating “Don’t stop the motion”. I wanted a deep vibe so I also recorded some female choir in the chorus. Vocalist Silvia helped me to obtain and put across the feeling I was looking for.

03. Don’t Stop

This became a more bouncy production. I wanted to create a summer track with improvisational verses with the help of classic vintage instruments. The goal was to create a combination between a Hip Hop beat and a classic fusion track. Fredrik Segerfalk dusted of the fender Rhodes and the old vocoder to make the track complete.

04. A Days Work

After a full day’s work I usually just want to take it easy. This track reminds me of coming home and just relaxing with the help of mellow music. The song was recorded with three instrument verses. We used analog synthesizer, Rhodes Piano and guitar. Fredrik Segerfalk & Fredrik Rixman helped me with the instrumentation.

05. Movement/Silence

The title track of the album became deep sound wise with a twist of melancholy to it. I wanted an ongoing instrumentation to vary the monotone loop and beat. Fredrik Segerfalk helped me once again and played an improvisation with monophonic synthesizer. He played over the whole track in one take.

06. Space & Time

With this track I wanted to capture the more introspective moments of life. The feeling of how life at times just seems to drift away. I wanted to make the concept clearer with a classic scratch wordplay. One phrase from the wordplay sums it up “The days of our lives change in space and time”.

07. Quiet Stream

This was created as an interlude track to calm things down a bit. I tried to keep it mellow, real slow and I also incorporated sound recorded from the street outside my studio. A quiet stream….

08. Takin’ It Slow

The title says it all. This is about those moments when things move real slowly. This could be shutting of the phone and just kicking back on a lazy Sunday. I tried a different swing when programming the drums. This to give the beat a certain tweak. Jazzy percussion and varied sounds made up the essential vibe of this track.

09. Uncut Dope

This was recorded as a scratch based track. I wanted to channel a battle attitude that simply stated “The boy’s dope”. When scratching, I prefer the beat punchy and hard. So a based the groove on some hard drums.

10. Spinnin’

I picked up the tempo a bit with this track. I wanted it sounding like the positive Hip Hop tracks from back in the days. And I wanted the good times in life to come in mind when hearing it. I recorded scratches together with DJ Create and we tried to use old school scratch techniques to fit with the sound of the beat. I also recorded choir with the help of Silvia and Svärd.

11. Some Nights

Some nights I wake up in a state between sleep and consciousness. It could be a dream that woke me up or that I’m actually dreaming that I’m awake. This track is about that confused mind state. The scratch wordplay explained my thoughts and Fredrik Segerfalk made the vibe complete with the help of piano and synthesizer.

12. Spoken

With this track I wanted to create something sounding like old Swedish jazz tunes. For some reason this piano loop gave me that exact feeling. I wanted the drums to sound organic so I worked with drummer Zoltan Csörsz JR. We recorded live drums and as a final touch Fredrik Segerfalk recorded strings from the Solina string synthesizer.

13. With The Groove

Lonnie Liston Smith sang “expand you mind”. The sound of this track gave me inspiration to move with the groove and try to think differently. Fredrik Segerfalk recorded sounds played on the mini moog synthesizer.

14. The Sound

I wanted to end the album with a track that summed up the vibe I was trying to bring to the listener with this whole project. This track developed into a deep dirty but still melodic groove. Once again Fredrik Segerfalk helped me vary the musical vibe with baseline and pads from analog synthesizers.