One Take Tapes

Abstract of the Breakout (Mr. Confuse, Info & Kova) interview with One Take Tapes from 14th, October 2006.

Where you come from?
We are all born and raised in the city of Hannover/ Germany.

Some words about your Home Town Hanover
We think that there is a very good structure of talented musicians in Hanover. We have been working with a lot of different musicians lately. No matter which style (jazz, funk, hip hop, balkan, classic) in our eyes Hanover offers great influences. Also, the dj-scene is strong here. There are good people representing the styles and there is space for good things in a very fluctuating club scene these days. . We starting a new monthly venue called “Grandezza” ourselves at a new club called “Apollo Konzept” in November.

What is Breakout and why did you choose this name?
Mr. Confuse, Info & Kova are Breakout. Breakout is a producer and dj team. We like to work with musicians, but we are definitely a producer team. We choose our name because it describes exactly our attitude of trying to breakout of genre borders. Producing and djing wise we are trying to mix a lot of different styles, genres and flavas. Focus is always on the funky or jazzy side. You get an idea of what we mean with that if you listen to songs like “Planet Rock” or “It’s Time To Breakout” and then listen to a track like “Moonlight Bossa (Nova Version)”. Both songs carry our sound idea of a ruff an dirty sound (analog, sample-sound, noise, crackles, tubes, distortion and all that), but they are styles wise across the border. Probably you would think these songs come from different artists, but this is exactly what defines us and defines the meaning of or to Breakout.

Describe your Style and your Way of producing
We definatly produce sample based in a common hip hop way. We are looking for sounds, bits and pieces. Creating loops and creating layers by putting different samples together to sound like one. Programming beats by using a large self built drum library out of our own funk and jazz crates. Most of the instruments like keys or bass for example we play on our own, but usually not in the common way of using a keyboard. Regularly we are programming these instruments by “drawing” them midi in an editor of the sequencer we use. In some cases we are recording live instruments and working together with musicians. We got our own way doing so. It depends on the session and the way the musician likes to work. We usually got a worked out sketch the musician is playing a line on top. What the musician plays is different from case to case. Sometimes we got a line worked out that we want him to play just like that or maybe with a slightly tip of his own style. Sometimes we just imagine how a certain instrument could fit into our sketch or a certain style of playing that instrument. So we let the musician offer us an idea for a line he could play or a style he could pick. Sometimes we do both. It really depends. After we got the line or the style we wanted to have there are three ways of using it for our track. 1. We take the line just the way it is because it’s a beauty and it’s really tight. 2. We take the line and totally cut it into samples. Sometimes even from tone to tone. We then put it back into the sampler and program it just the way we like it. 3. A combination. We take some parts of the line and program the rest or cut the line into one bars or two bars. For example “Planet Rock” contains of more than 1200 rearranged and programmed samples in the original version.

Some words about diggin’
Diggin’ is very important to us because it builds the basement to our music. In a true “each one teach one” sense we like to be inspired by a lot of different styles of music and artists. We are all into music since our early teenager days and we all started diggin’ “the hip hop way” by checking out the credits and the contains a sample so and so section on the back of the records. Like that we got beyond the borders of hip hop.

Some words about your Vinyl Collection
We all got the same basement of rap and hip hop in our collections. Mostly golden age, nu skool, experimental, jazzy, a bit of old school, a bit of electro and some britcore.
Mr. Confuse has huge spectrum of rare groove (funk & soul 60s & 70s, northern soul, afro, boogaloo…) and a wide spectrum of jazz and latin. Also, you can find funky breakbeat, breaks, downbeat, nu jazz, modern groove, jazzy d&b in his collection. Even some classic music, reggae, rocksteady, and rock you can find in his collection, too.
Info loves his hard funk, deep latin and swingin´ boogaloo, groovy jazz, rare soul, dirty afrobeat and brazilian records. He also has his eyes on a bride spectrum of modern dance music like funky breaks, broken beat, nu jazz, brazilectro, d´n´b and that good ol´ rapmusic plus he is a fan of the large mash up, bootleg and white label dance bizzness.
In Kove’s crates you will find lots of jazz records. From swing and bebop over to hard bop, brazilian & latin jazz to fusion stuff like the CTI records and so on…Also he got a lotta love for modern music like d’n’b, jazzy house tunes and nujazz. Of course you will find that classic stuff like bossa nova, funk, soul and rap. His special craze is diggin’ for rare soundtracks and european stuff like french or polish records.

Your biggest Crates
We got a very good pusher at our local flea market. He supplies us with rarities form crates all over the world. Once a year we have Germany’s biggest jazz records fair in Hanover. There is also a good structure of lets call them “b-record stores” that mostly have bad stuff but where you can dig some real nice stuff with a little patient. Also, we are buying a lot at eBay. For new records we use our local dealer “25 music” or order via internet.

Top Ten List of Breakout in no particular order - Mr. Confuse, Info & Kova (Breakout)
01. Sugarloaf Gangsters – Avant Le Jazz 12″ (GAMM)
02. Daz-I-Kue – Roots 12″ (Bloodfire Vol.4)
03. Shirley Scott – Something LP (Atlantic)
04. Hudson County – Bim Sala Dim (RCA)
05. Cookin on 3 Burners – Keb’s Bucket (Freestyle)
06. Dr. Delay – Rule Of The Thumb (Funk Weapons)
07. J-Dilla – The Shining LP (BBE)
08. Lou Donaldson – Alligator Boogaloo LP (Blue Note)
09. Herbert – Moving like a train (K7/Accidental)
10. Breakout – Planet Rock  7″ (Melting Pot Music)

Some Words to your new release Planet Rock
Even Africa Bambaataa told  us that “Breakout rocks to the Planet Rock Don’t Stop”

Some words about your past releases
“It’s Time To Breakout” was our first release. It’s on the “Battle of the year Soundtrack 2005” compilation. It’s hard and dirty funk breakbeat the way we thought it would nice for a b-boy to dance to. Our second release is “Moonlight Bossa (Nova Version)” and it’s on the “Brazilectro Session 8” compilation which was released in august on Audiopharm Records. On this song we tried to put bossa nova, downbeat, brasil, rock, alternative and hip hop together. These two songs are very different in their style and the compilations they are released on, too. As we have already described these songs show very good the production spectrum of Breakout. We hope that people that like our sound get in touch with different music and music styles that way.

What comes next?
In October just in time for the International “Battle of the Year” the official soundtrack 2006 will drop on Dominance Records. We will have a track on that compilation called “The Showdown”. Also there will be a Fiat Freestyle Team – MixCD by Kid Cut and hosted by Spax featuring all songs produced by Breakout. In November there will be a follow up “Planet Rock” full length 12” coming out on Melting Pot Music. It will contain part 1 and 2, Bonus Beats, a Jazz Version of “Planet Rock” and brand new track called “Planet Funk”. Also, in November there will be a compilation coming out on Melting Pot Music called “DJ Olski Presents More MPM Sound”. There will be “Planet Rock part 1” and a brand new track called “The Funky Goofball” on it. Furthermore in November our new venue called “Grandezza” starts at a new local club called “Apollo Konzept”.

When comes the Breakout Album?
At the moment we are working on a jazzy influenced album and we hope to finish it soon. It will sound the way “Moonlight Bossa (Nova Version)” sounds like and we are still looking for a label that could be interested in publishing stuff like that. We are also planning to produce a follow up album to the “planet rock” sounding style.

What is a good break to you?
Sometimes breakfast, but usually dinner!!!