Focused Few
Location:
London, UK
Biography:
For all those of you that are from London, you have one more band to be proud of. Focused Few are a welcome addition to the live hip hop scene in the UK, bringing together a team of London session allstars, including Stevie ‘Keys’ Doolan, DJ Nonames of Foreign Beggars on turntables, and a number of other worthy members of the UK stable.
Thomas Zacharias played guitar as a child for seven years before switching to bass. He moved to London in ’96, where he would soon meet soul/funk man Stephen Doolan, a classically trained keyboard player. Sessions and jams would ensue in several studios and live spots around London including WKD & jazz club The Crypt where he met local South London rapper Taurai. Soon Wayne Cassilly, a seasoned drummer was recruited alongside Dj NoNames, who approaches turntablism from a fresh perspective, using the decks as a dynamic instrument by responding to music with tightly executed scratches and samplework. With the core of drums, bass, keys, dj and emcee, the FFew went on to gig at local spots Paradise Bar and Goldsmiths University before going on to perform at Ocean in Hackney for Black History month and doing a string of dates at London’s infamous Jazz Café.
Along the way the FFew have had the pleasure of playing with some of the cream of the London music scene. After a hiatus in 2003, during which time Tom worked with Roots Manuva, and the ascent of Foreign Beggars saw Nonames become full time tour DJ, they returned revitalised with a more mature sound. 2004 saw the addition of three new members: L.A. songstress Audra Nishita a former backing singer for Macy Gray and Plantlife, Alero Scott a talented young homegrown singer/songwriter and the inimitable Aurelius clarinet/vocalist of Lotek Hi Fi fame.
Review:
The success of this album is due to the tightness of all eight musicians, and the intuitively sensitive way in which each song has been composed. The tracks are restyled grooves, each developed to showcase each instrument. You can see from their funk structures that the music is of principal importance to these guys, if only to lay the perfect canvas for all four vocalists. Taurai puts in his quintessentially laid back performances, while keeping the rhyming patterns tight and varied and his vision suitably sardonic, while Aurelius continues, demonstrating a maturity of delivery that impresses by not trying to. Stevie Keys lends a uniqueness with his Rhodes work, which again is a testament to his years of working as a session keyboard on the London live funk and hip hop scene.
DJ Nonames is as reliably innovative as ever and the rhythm section is solid. However, the highlight for this writer was in fact the two female vocalists Audra and Alero, who are about as charismatic and vocally confident as female vocalists need to be, particularly on the live stage. The madness is, that as good as this album is, the live act is everything for the Focused Few. Attending the launch party without having listened to the album, they blew me away, with presence and form that stands so far out from the crowd, that they will find their own way to success. Find it, buy it, go to the gig.
Links:
MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/focusedfew
Label - http://www.dentedrecords.com