ph balance
ph balance
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About ph balance
After seven years fronting the Atlanta bossa-jazz-pop group Cicada Sings, chanteuse Pam Howe (also leads Chakra Bird and Pam Howe's Bossa Nova Jazz) witnessed a performance by bluesy groove masters G. Love & Special Sauce that was inspiring enough to change her musical outlook. Having an inherent fondness for hip-hop, Howe and longtime collaborator/drummer Chris Burte toyed with the idea of a new project and in 1997, roped in a couple of local club DJs to help fulfill their vision. Aaron Platt and Captain Mudfish Starbolt were the lucky recruits (later joined by percussionist Tony James) and the trip-hop sound of pH Balance was born. Their individual and collective reputations, along with a strong buzz on the Atlanta music scene, were enough to perk up the ears of Indigo Girls' Amy Ray, who signed pH Balance to her not-for-profit independent Daemon Records and released their self-titled debut in 1999. Akin to the seductive artistry of their U.K. counterparts Portishead and Everything But the Girl, Howe and Mudfish alternately sing, speak, and rap engaging melodies over live (and occasionally looped) rhythms. Ph Balance: a southern soul girl who speaks Tokyo. PH is Pam Howe. Her conversational, powerful voice deciphers the melody puzzles and word paths that lead to and from you to me simply, spiritually. Resounding. Resonance. Phosphorescence...a very slow burn. Connecting groove with god (little g please) inside the fattest kick drum beat. The project Ph Balance transformed the scene in Atlanta GA at the turn of the millennium. Rooted in the ATL, the original five piece band consisted of Ph on vocals and guitar, Captain Mudfish Starbolt as MC and on MPC, Chris Fatty Burt on drums, Tony TJ Hooker James on percussion and Aaron Platt AKA Jack Lingo on bass. Ph Balance was birthed from a love of hip-hop, trip-hop, Bossa Nova and acid jazz with a mission toward southern poetic communication transferred via soul hums and collard greens. Immediately and unanimously dubbed Atlanta’s premier trip-hop band. They infiltrated the underground DJ scene with a series of warehouse shows thrown by the Kaleidoscope Family (a collective they co-founded, consisting of hip-hop acts, DJ’s, visual artists and dancers) The band released 3 albums, played over a 1,000 shows all over the US, and basically laid it down tight and kept it for real for years.
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