Deaf Safari

REPRESS! Much sought after 2-LP (long time sold out) of this in demand artist who will release also his new album "The Soft White Hand" on November 22.

ARTIST STATEMENT
Deaf Safari is an audio collage of subjects that interest me and speak of the world I live in. It is an album composed of sampled recordings from the media landscape that has been the soundtrack to my life over the last ten years.

The most important development in my current music and as can be heard on Deaf Safari has been my understanding of the beauty and power of the spoken word. I have experienced severe indifference to contemporary pop and electronic music as a whole over the last many years, as I have felt that social comment of any relevance has been ignored by music in general.

Deaf Safari attempts to bring sociopolitical comment into my music without taking any specific stand. Sampled outside of musical influence directly from the news; from preacher sermons or from contemporary African documentaries. I have finally created a story with sound that I feel accurately conveys my personal experience with the African world I live in.

My musical influences on this album lie mostly with local Kwaito house. Deaf Safari is an experiment within certain boundaries of the 4/4 genre, to create my own South African "house" album. I am proud and inspired about the South African Kwaito house scene. However, as with my first three albums, "Thin Shoes In June" (2001) - "4/4 Down The Stairs" (2002) and "Dark Days Exit" (2005), I am still interested in making strange and evocative music.

American Roots music from the earlier periods of the 20th century has deeply resonated with me during the making of this album. The incredible field recordings by Alan Lomax of Negro prison and chain gang work songs, and the beautiful early recordings of artists such as Leadbelly have had a major influence on Deaf Safari.

I am truly excited to release this album and to start performing in the music world again. It has been ten years since I released "Dark Days Exit , and although I have been purposefully absent from the music world, I have none the less never stopped making music. I feel that I have finally arrived at a mature and challenging stage in my pursuit of making emotional music of relevance .

Quotes about the previous album "Dark Days Exit":

"Dark Days Exit is an interesting blend of latin, ambient, folk, and lounge flavors. The production and composition is top notch throughout, but check the choppy clicks of "Crooked Breath" or the eerie, melodic "Radio Right Now" for signs of true inspiration. A talent to watch." XLR8R

"One of South Africa's most gifted electronic artists" Resident Advisor

"It has the dark sparkle of Air's 'Moon Safari', random trippy flashes of Pink Floyd´s earlier sounds, and if David Lynch had based 'Twin Peaks' in Cape Town´s City Bowl, then this would work as the soundtrack." SA Rockdigest

"An insane swirling ambient dub glitch freak show." Dazed & Confused Magazine

"Dark Days Exit … will ingrain itself into your psyche until you have no choice but to listen to it over, and over, and over again. Every time, it will be worth hearing." Pop Matters

"Laband´s superbly-layered, multi-tiered soundscapes are tantalizingly tranquil and intriguingly unique – they amble like ambient and slip into the bloodstream like liquid LSD." rage.co.za

"An album that will bewilder due to weird electronic nature, but by the same token has the power to melt the soul. Mindblowing." Jon Freer

"For the younger generation, Felix Laband became a mythical legend." Below The Lion

"So gehört hat man das noch nicht - die komplett klischeefreie Deepnesss dieser verzwickt-geschickt gefrickelten Elektronik mit Suchtfaktor zehn ist geradezu beängstigend." INTRO

"Elektronische Musik, die schwerlich nur natürlicher, menschlicher klingen kann. Oder kurz gesagt: ein mehr als ausgezeichnetes Album. Tricky Chillout…" GROOVE

"Man nimmt "Dark Days Exit" einfach nichts übel, alles scheint hier zu funktionieren." DE:BUG