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ON THE COUCH WITH: Shapeshifter

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Now your new album, Soulstice, is about to be released in Australia. What can you tell us about the album?
Shapeshifter: We relocated to Kokoda which is on the east cost of New Zealand and it's a town of about 3000 people. It's a beautiful place, and we decided to write the album here over the course of six months and it was an incredible experience because we removed ourselves from external influences, there was no TV, no radio and we just hit it hard and we just spent lot of time on it really, a lot more time on this than the other recordings. We got down to the distance of where our music is and where we wanted it to be and I think the goal was to create a diverse sound but it went a bit deeper with this album.

Access All Areas.net.au: You've achieved so much success in New Zealand with your new album, have you been surprised at how successful the album has been?
Shapeshifter: We're always hoping it would do well and the thing is when we started we were taking small steps forward really and we are always hoping it would do well and we are pleased that it has but we’re not totally out of the blue surprised because we've had a lot of good shows over the years and for us it was just a natural progression.

Access All Areas.net.au: You've released more records in New Zealand, what do you think has changed since the first album?
Shapeshifter: I think we’re not too... when we did the first album I think we really wanted to take it to the world, take it to the drum and bass and other genres of music, we wanted to sort of have our say and I think now we couldn't really give a stuff what other musicians or other people thought and whether it fits in to genres and stuff. I think now we're jut on our own twist and we want to make the music that appeals to us and hopefully our listeners as well without conforming to anything in particular. We always like to push things… I think now we hope that we make our own sound.

Access All Areas.net.au: You've already played shows here in Australia how have Australian audiences taken to your live shows and music?
Shapeshifter: Yeah great! We get a really awesome response. We've played shows in Melbourne and Sydney and we’ve had really great response to our shows there. The shows sold out and the reaction from Australian audiences has been really awesome, and really open. I think for some they wouldn't be too familiar with the songs, with drum and bass or what we do live and the mainstream scene in Australia is different to the mainstream scene in New Zealand. There is a lot more drum and bass in mainstream New Zealand.

Access All Areas.net.au: When a fan goes to a Shapeshifter show what is it that they can expect?
Shapeshifter: Five people just making the best got damn music they can. What they can actually hear and feel is a sense of energy and hopefully they want to dance and close their eyes and dream about something. Our aim is to take people away from the world and show them good time.

Access All Areas.net.au: You're playing the Big Day Out festival next year, you must be excited about that?
Shapeshifter: Very excited! We’re stoked!

Access All Areas.net.au: What other bands are you excited about that are on the bill that you'd like to see?
Shapeshifter: Yeah heaps... we've got Muse, and Tool blew me away when I saw them last, The Killers they do some great shows, and who else? There's heaps!

Access All Areas.net.au: What is ahead for Shapeshifter?
Shapeshifter: We've got the summer which is going to be busy with us playing some really good shows, we're filming the new video for the next single 'Electric Dream' and then we've got some shows in New Zealand and Australia and we head to Europe in May so that will be great playing at places we've never played before. Our focus is internationally, we're really pleased with what's happened in New Zealand and hope to follow that up with some goodness in Australia and we just want to keep going.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Shapeshifter are New Zealand's top drum and bass band and favourite live act. Their latest album 'Soulstice' entered the NZ national charts at remarkable number 4, has spent over 2 months in the Top 20, and has also reached number 1 on the independent charts.

Shapeshifter's highly anticipated third album 'Soulstice' is to be released in Australia the first week of January 2007 - it reached Gold sales in New Zealand in just 3 weeks! It has a star line up featuring Shapeshifter’s artistic talents and features vocals from some of New Zealand’s top artists. The first Australian ingle "Electric Dreams" to be released in early 2007 features the Shapeshifter vocalist P.Digress. September 2006 saw Shapeshifter tour throughout Aotearoa spreading their acclaimed drum and bass soul styles. In cutting-edge Shapeshifter fashion, they performed with leading orchestras in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch selling out their shows and having people auction their tickets off.

Their reputation as pioneers of modern music was built by a unique approach to electronic music, creating live what had previously been restricted to computer based studio musicians. Shapeshifter perform regularly in New Zealand and Australia. They have played a massive five sell out New Zealand tours in a row as well as performing throughout the New Zealand festival circuit.

Shapeshifter's sound has evolved to transcend genre definition, taking elements from jazz, latin, reggae, soul, rock, hip hop and electronica, and blending them live, into a truly diverse and overwhelming dancefloor experience.

2001 saw the release of their debut LP 'Realtime', highlights included a collaboration with sublime vocalist Ladi6, on the track 'Move With Me'. 'Realtime' was awarded the 'Best Electronic Release' at the 2002 bnet NZ Music Awards. Their second release 'Riddim Wise LP' gained gold sales status and is only the second independently distributed Drum'n'Bass album in the world to do so. The hits "Long White Cloud", "Been Missin" and "When I Return" feature the voices of some of New Zealand’s top soul vocalists – Joe Dukie, P digsss and Ladi6 respectively. The album has subsequently spent many weeks at number 1 on the independent album sales charts. They won ”Best Electronic Release" for their video of “Long White Cloud” at the 2005 Juice TV Music Awards.

www.shapeshifter.co.nz

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

British India
Adelaide Big Day Out. We were staying in the same hotel as other artists and I came downstaris to go to the after party and a big crowd was surrounding Aracde Fire and Bjork at the grand piano in the restaurant of the hotel. They were doing old show tunes and everyone was singing along. The lead singer of Arcade Fire was playing piano and everyone was singing along. I recall Buddy Holly's 'Everyday It's Getting Closer', a couple of ABBA songs and some John Lennon, it was very cool. Favourite festivals moments though are just when it's a good show with good reactions, where you don't have to think too much on stage and lose yourself.

Ideal Lineup?
I'd have bands that would never be seen on the same stage because they've long since broken up or died, I'd have Blur opening the festival followed by the Smiths who would reform for my music festival, and At The Drive In would finish the day just when I was drunk enough to dance like they can.

Fave artist you've seen at a Music Festival?
Rage Against The Machine. Also, Brand New who are a vastly under rated band from New York that played at Big Day Out. I saw them pretty much without fail at every Big Day Out and they were astounding, and to use the the cliche, quite inspiring. I've ripped off many of their moves since then!

Tips for attending Music Festivals
Don't break your neck. Don't worry too much about getting to the front for every band you want to see. It's probably better to pick 4 or so that you can really absorb as opposed to having cursory glances at every one. It's like any 'day out' it's best to pace yourself, don't go mental and try to see everything, relax and take it all in.