Untitled Document

Alex van Heerden & Magnus Bank

Alex van Heerden grew up in Port Elizabeth, a coastal town in South Africa. As a teenager, he played trumpet in his school marching band in order to avoid compulsory military training and was soon playing jazz in the local townships. After school he played briefly with 'Goema' luminary, Mac McKenzie and the Genuines before moving to Cape Town in 1994 to join the Hilton Schilder quintet. One year later he started playing with 'Cape Jazz' icon, Robbie Jansen, with whom he performs to this day. He spent two years as a member of the Winston Mankunku quintet, during which time he began to explore rural Afrikaans music. He purchased an accordion, and started spending long periods of time in the rural areas of the Cape, playing in pentecostal churches and with Afrikaans folk musicians. The result of these journeys was the formation in 1998 of Gramadoelas, the first group to explore 'Vastrap', the music of rural Afrikaans speakers, in a contemporary context. Gramadoelas, fronted by van Heerden, gave many inspiring and energetic performances, bridging the traditional cultural gap by being successful on both the jazz and the alternative music scenes. In 2000, van Heerden became interested in the possibilities of electronic music, and in 2001 he found himself in Stockholm, collaborating with producer Håkan Lidbo. After his return to South Africa, he collaborated with local arranger/violist/guitarist Derek Gripper on the live album 'Sagtevlei', placing Vastrap in a contemporary avant-garde setting. In 2002 he collaborated with Swedish musician/producer, Magnus Bank, forming the group 'Hemisfär', exploring Vastrap within a minimal Scandinavian aesthetic. He lives between Stockholm and the rural South African town of Tulbagh, juggling his role as jazz/folk musician with his interest in electronic music production. He regularly performs with the ’Goema Captains of Cape Town’ , ’Robbie Jansen and the Sons of Table Mountain’, and as a duo with Derek Gripper. In Stockholm he engages in ongoing projects with Håkan Lidbo and Magnus Bank. He has also launched his first solo project, ’Bushtech’, bridging the gap between minimalistic techno and Cape music with live performances in Sweden and South Africa. Even more so in the minimal sphere is ’Nofretete’, a project recorded together with Magnus Bank exploring what a jazz standard might sound like from an insect point of view. Insect jazz.

Smallfunk

Smallfunk is a publishing company and studio facility based in stockholm with a satellite somewhere around cape town. The bulk of the music is composed by alex van heerden, one of south africas most interesting names on the electronic scene, with a long history as a professional trumpet and accordion player in the jazz and folk music circuit of cape town. source material is the indigenous, suburban and urban sounds and rythms of the western cape. styles like vastrap, goema and klopse. Alex has, together with different swedish producers such as H åkan Lidbo and Magnus Bank, been experimenting with blending these different influences with the subtle minimalistic aesthetics of the scandinavian electronic scene. Travelling back and forth between the two hemispheres in time-space-spirit they have come up with some truly unique music.

For more info about Smallfunk se www.smallfunk.com

Funky Tuna & Lady Sun

At 16 Funky Tuna (Ulrika Backebo) hit the club scene in Malmö and has later been seen go-go dancing in Honolulu clubs and in the latest Naked Ape video. Hitting the worlds dancefloors for years, trying out a few different instruments and other modes of expression, Ulrika recently made the next logical step to start DJ-ing and most recently making music. As tactile experience is essential the choice for vinyl was easy. For her music is primarily about dancing and having fun, and she wishes to be able to give back to the dancefloors some of what she has been given in good times. Ulrika's style is simply good tunes, and she moves heavily from techno to house to electro to euro to disco, preferably with a dirty bass or juicy hook all through - funky tuna! Lady Suns interest in music has always been present and she has expressed her music in many different forms. It started with 'dog disco' in kindergarten, playing the flute in junior high, musical science at university and belly dancing in the E-type video 'Princess of Egypt'. After regularly going to the DJ-battles at the Tornamento club during the winter months in 2002, Susanne became interested for real in the art of DJ-ing. She bought record players and a mixer board and slowly things were starting to happen. Her speciality has become experimental chill and dance, ranging from trance to techno to electro, often with influences from the oriental sound. For more info about Funky Tuna and Lady Sun see www.sistersthlm.se.

Monica Bergmark

Clubs: Berns, Operakällaren, Eken Hilton/Slussen, Heaven & Hell, Göta Källare, Daily News Café, Creml, Big Brother, Atlantic, BZ, The Crib, The Loft, Extremes, Hippodrome & Stringfellows (London), Burmeister, Country Club, Universum, Rex, Vibrator and other Funky Places...

Music: Hip Hop, R'n'B, Funk, Soul, Disco, House

Loves: P-Funk, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Parliament Funkadelic

History: Dj since 1983. Engineer & Producer for Swedish National Radio P3, Swedish TV 2 & TV 24 since 1996.

Royalty: Dj:ed for the Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf's at his 40th birthday bash at the Drottningholm Castle! She has also interviewed and hung out with George Clinton, who is as good as royalty - If you ask her...

Awards: "Best Trailer/Jingle 2002", "Best Sound 2003" & ”Best Program 2004

For more info about Monica Bergmark see www.sistersthlm.se

Adeline

Adeline has a great passion for djing, music and dancing. And after joining a dj school with the Mendez brothers, in 2004, she headed for the clubs. When Adeline plays live she moves to the music and might even dance as much as the crowd on the dancefloor! She loves the search of new songs, and they will probably be exactly what you want to hear in the club

Adeline is also a club manager and has been involved in the making of clubs in Stockholm. The music she plays is best to be described with the genres electro/pop/tech/house, sometimes harder and sometimes softer. But always very melodic. In her sets you are able to hear "the newest of the new" mixed with "the new" and maybe an "old goodie". This means to say True Dancemusic!

For more info about Adeline see www.sistersthlm.se

P-low

P-LOW discovered her passion for drums already in her mother`s stomach while her father was playin drums, 12 years later she started her own band with some people from her school banging the drums at pubs,festivals, and some school parties in her hometown Bogotà-Colombia.

The punk rockgirl found playing drums as the way to express her overflowing creativity.The adrenaline-fuelled sessions of jamming to old Anthrax tunes, the combination of energy and passion shown then was only a hint of what was to come: be it destroying the dancefloors at Stockholm's heaviest dnb parties with the frantic drum funk edits of Paradox, Seba, Macc, stuff of Breakage, source direct,klute,amit etc, or creating liquid soundscapes with her selection from the more atmospheric end of the drum'n'bass spectrum. Her sets take you back in time to 1995 when drum'n'bass or jungle was about feeling and attitude instead of being hard house with breakbeats..

For more info about P-low see www.sistersthlm.se