Wider Angle by Hybrid

When Mike Truman, Chris Healings and Lee Mullin released their debut album "Wide Angle", it surprised anyone who thought that dance music couldn't be clever, challenging and musically astute.

"Wide Angle" had been over a year in the making and was born of Hybrid's frustration with the narrow horizons of British dance music and its structural predictability. They wanted to make it more melodic, more imaginative, bigger and deeper than it had ever been before. So they went from Swansea to London, Moscow, Paris and New York, gathering material for a set of startlingly innovative tracks.

That was then, and in the past nine months since the album was originally released, things have changed quite dramatically. Hybrid were received as one of the most acclaimed new bands of 1999, "Wide Angle" collected an abundance of album of the month reviews and the guys ended 1999 on a high with a "Best Dance Act" award at the Miami WMC, a slot on the Muzik magazine UK tour and a "Best Live Act" nomination at the Muzik magazine awards; all the more outstanding considering Hybrid had only a handful of live gigs under their belt at that time.

Hybrid live includes the aforementioned trio plus drummer/percussionist Al Madge and scratch pervert Jamie Griffiths, who add both energy and strength to the show. They have gone on to hone their gigs to near perfection, with live dates as far afield as Mount Fuji in Japan, Miami Beach, San Francisco, Ibiza, Sydney, Taiwan, New York, Singapore and Panama City, their global presence getting stronger with every dynamic live show performed and fans converted to the sound of rapturous applause.

DJing also, has allowed Hybrid to immerse themselves in a broad range of musical styles. "You draw all these influences in, and use them to create new sounds," explains Truman, "everything that we've listened to over the years has been absorbed and used in some way," he reflects. With the newly performing Hybrid Interactive Soundsystem, it's another way for Hybrid to make their presence heard; where 2 Welshmen, 3 keyboards, 4 computers and a box of records combine to create a electrifying soundclash. And with tastes and skills as eclectic as Hybrid's, there's plenty of scope for the wildest kind of experimentation.

So to embrace a heady 12 months, "Wide Angle" morphs into a "Wider Angle" special edition release of the album to include a live CD recorded on a recent tour of Japan which captures both the vigour and passion that has been experienced by all who have seen them live and bringing into the living room for those who have yet to catch them.

Their current single, "Kid 2000", a reworking of a Pretenders track featuring Chrissie Hynde and their first foray into the top 40 is also included on the CD as a bonus track, along with sought after and previously unreleased tracks "Kill City" and "Altitude".

The sweetest musical spots are always found deep between the contrasts. Dark and light, orchestral and digital, dramatic and delicate, raw and polished, sadness and bliss. Searched for by many, discovered by few, conquered by Hybrid; it’s a creative place where any story can be told. From studio to stadiums, dancefloor bangers to symphonic film scores, the clue’s been in their name since day one.

hybridband.com
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