Terrorbird

Two in a room. Surrounded by buttons and cables, by guitars, synthesizers, microphones. Fat Jon and Arne van Petegem (Styrofoam) have recorded The Same Channel during a few weeks. Through days and nights, interrupted only by short coffee breaks and longer walks.

In Arne's studio in Antwerp the two docked their soundships: Fat Jon, the EmCee and DJ, Arne van Petegem, the guitarist and laptop-artist. They share the passion for their machines' soul, the filing of their files of two artists who are able to puzzle over two times for a whole night.

All around the world. Cincinnati, Antwerp, Berlin. The two got to know each other five years ago. In 2001 Arne van Petegem invited Fat Jon, still living in Cincinnati/Ohio at that time, to a workshop in Antwerp. What followed this first encounter was great respect for the music of the other and a deep, lasting friendship - as well as the idea of a common album. The Same Channel has grown out of this. A musical encounter indeed, but far away from crossover of the indieboy-meetshomeboy-clich���©s. This album drinks of a common cup, it thinks musical schools, worlds and last but not least passions together: the onomatopoeic guitars of Styrofoam, Fat Jon's repetitive idiom, his talent for laconic stories. The klicks'n'cuts, carefully and detailed interwoven, and a production that - without laying it on thick - makes clear that two well versed producers are at work. "Scream It Out" is a nimble, catchy track, enticing and tricky in its alterations and modulations. "Space Ganster" is a creeping track, Dub, smoothly cruising. "Upgrade" a nonchalant speechstaccato, surrounded by one of theses enticing refrains by Styrofoam.

Fat Jon moved from Cincinnati to Berlin because of love. He is still part of the Cincinnati-based, Progressive-Hip-Hop-collective Five Deez that releases on the Berlin-based label K7!. Small world, isn't it? Fat Jon released further the album Afterthought on Ample Soul/Libyus Music. Arne van Petegem enlarged his indie-guitar background in the late 1990ies by means of a sampler and a Roland Junosynthesizer - in order to lap about the joins of guitar-songwriting and Elektronika as Styrofoam. Since these days he released four records on Morr Music, the most recent one Nothing's Lost (2004) has sold over 5,600 units.