Preview
FORT KNOX FIVE
Thursday, April 22
Night Gallery
The Fort Knox Five is an amalgam of each of the member’s funk-fuelled persona, as well as an expression of the Washington DC group’s take on the modern dance floor. While their resumé is easy to describe (members have worked with Afrika Bambataa, Thunderball and Thievery Corporation), their music is another story.
They don’t really belong in a particular category of dance music. Each single that they’ve produced has had a different focus, incorporating hip-hop, drum ’n’ bass, house and even ska into the mix, producing a sound that is no more this than that – which doesn’t bother any of the members.
"It’s funky," says Steve Raskin, one arm of the Fort Knox Five. "(It’s) cross-beat, cross-tempo – it’s a non-adjective. It’s really not a description, it just says that it crosses tempos and that’s really what we do. We do songs that are hip-hop tempo, – breakbeat. We do drum ’n’ bass. We’ll do whatever is necessary to capture the idea of the song."
The idea of a song has, for so long, seemed counterintuitive to beat music, especially during the period through which dance music has just passed. What gives credence to the Fort Knox sound is their allegiance to what dance music once was.
"It used to be about good music and a good time. You’d hear everything…." says Jon Horvath, another member of the collective. "So what we really try to do is appeal to everyone. We’re not about just breaks or just drum ’n’ bass we’re about everything and that, I guess, gives us our style."
Their style underscores Horvath’s own desire to change tempos and moods in order to change the energy of a dance floor. "We really are just more interested in making dance music fun again and there are so many ways to do that without relying on a particular genre… It works for us and against us at the same time… ’cause the way the industry works now is that you have to be one thing in order to develop a following and then you play to that following, but for us we like appealing to a range of people." |
Copyright ©2004 FFWD. All rights reserved.