CDs - Swingle Singers/Shlomo/Beatbox Choir: Beauty and the Beatbox (2007 CD)

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Swingle Singers/Shlomo/Beatbox Choir: Beauty and the Beatbox (2007 CD)

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What is it about the Swingle Singers in 2007 that makes them so different from previous incarnations of the group? What are they doing now that's new and innovative?

These are questions posed often by many people who encounter the group, asking what has changed in the past 44 years. They looked for the answer and found that, slowly and naturally, a new element had been filtering into their live shows that made a sonic impact and has rendered itself indispensable: vocal percussion. This album is the first Swingle Singers disc where every track contains vocal percussion or human beatboxing, not just as a component in the sound but more as a real feature to the arrangement.

With these arrangements, the Swingles wanted to showcase the vocal talents of the group in ways that have not necessarily been shown on Swingle Singers' records before - aside from the crunchy beatboxing of Jes and Tobias, all of the singers have contributed to the vocal percussion, particularly in creating the samba band feel of the latin arrangements. In the same way that the group of the 1960s fused the music of Bach with vocalese jazz to create something new from two different musical eras, without changing a note; the arrangement of "Dido's Lament" and Albinoni's "Adagio" show that the group is continuing this tradition, this time mixing Baroque works with contemporary beats.

..In recording this album the Swingle Singers have realized that their rhythm section has become the essential foundation and structure for the vocal parts it supports; one doesn't make sense without the other. When stripped down to its bare essentials, what they are hoping to achieve with this new sound is a perfect balance of lush vocals and street beats, which we hope you will find in "Beauty and the Beatbox!" (Excerpted from the liner notes.)

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Watch the trailer for "The Beatbox Choir," a documentary following the story of SHLOMO AND THE VOCAL ORCHESTRA who are the UK's only human beatboxing choir.

The documentary will be screened at the PURCELL ROOM in London on October 1st 2007.
More info / tickets: http://shlo.co.uk http://myspace.com/shlomizzle

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Beauty and the Beatbox Song List:
A Fifth of Beethoven (arr. Tobias Hug, Human beatbox: Shlomo)
Spain (I Can Recall) (arr. Scott Stroman, VP: Jeremy)
Dido's Lament (arr. Tom Bullard, Human beatbox: Tobias)
It's Sand, Man! (arr. Ward Swingle, VP: Jeremy)
Adagio in G Minor (arr. Tom Bullard, Human beatbox: Jeremy)
Bolero (arr. Tom Bullard, VP: Jeremy)
Cielito Lindo (arr. Itay Avramovitz, VP: Everyone!)
Straighten Up and Fly Right (arr. Bertrand Groeger, VP: Tom)
Piano Concerto No. 21, 2nd Mvmt. (Mozart, arr. Jonathan Rathbone, VP: Jeremy)
Gotcha (Theme from "Starsky & Hutch") (arr. Adam Riley, VP: Jeremy)
Bachbeat (feat. Shlomo, MC Zani, Bellatrix, Spitf'ya and jestar) (Written by Shlomo & the Vocal Orchestra w/the Swingle Singers, based on Badinerie by J.S. Bach, arr. Ward Swingle)