SUBSOURCE

In 2005, a Cambridge educated British-Chinese science prodigy started to jam with a Malawian hip hop crew. They’re joined by a Norwegian born multi instrumentalist from the famous Brazilian club Guanabara on guitar and synths. You know, the usual way a band forms. “All we need is a double bass player of Spanish heritage from a Nu-School Jazz Breaks background. Ideally one who has worked with a d‘n’b drummer from an Abba tribute band on a remix of ‘Monkey Magic’ for the DVD release of the classic Kung-Fu show.” They said. Probably. But that’s the way it happened. And so it came to pass that this bizarre collection of international musicians with even more bizarre and diverse backgrounds formed a band called Subsource in the unlikeliest of suburban towns – Guildford. Lead vocalist and electric double bass player Stu Henshall. African superstar rapper Kimba Mutanda. Guitar and synths pouter Paul Frazer. The classically trained Dennis Ng on keyboards and percussion. And the intricate yet ear splitting drummer Neil Shervell. A series of successful and highly improvised live shows took place cementing the band as the live electro/breaks/d’n’b band. Tracks were commissioned for computer games such as Moto GP, Juiced and errr...Crazy Frog! The live favourite ‘This Town’ was picked up by Spin Out Records and along with a Hook & Sling remix of the tune was released to critical acclaim and sold thousands internationally following regular plays by the likes of The Chemical Brothers and Plump DJ’s. The source of the sub was beginning to growl... The growl made some waves culminating in Subsource lead singer Stu Henshall working with The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett on pre ‘Invaders Must Die’ writing sessions. Then Far Too Loud requested his services on their single ‘You Know The Sound’. Meanwhile Subsource began to develop a harder edge to their noise as they wowed festival crowds in 2007 at Glastonbury and Secret Garden Party and remixed tunes for Datarock, Parka and GoodBooks. The following twelve months saw Subsource play with the likes of Dizzee Rascal, Hexstatic, The Egg and Ebony Bones and travel to Berlin and Paris to play 1000 capacity venues. More festivals in 2008 at V and Isle Of Wight brought further media attention to the band and garnered support from influential XFM DJ’s Eddy Temple Morris and John Kennedy, the music magazine The Fly and K-Mag, the Metro newspaper and Radio 1’s Nihal. Ridley Scott’s US TV show Numb3rs requested the use of an early track called ‘Parasite’ while Sky Sports used the body shaking, dance infused anthem ‘Disarm’ as the title music to their coverage of the World Freerun Championships. This inspired a slew of new tracks with writing and recording taking place individually at each band member’s home studio and collectively at Subsource’s spiritual home: their very own studio, The Trench. Tracks such as future album closer ‘Beats and Bandages’ and a song which morphed into a dubstep pounder called ‘Dark Is The New Light’ gave an indication of the melodic fusion of sharp punk break-beats Subsource were capable of. A new edge was found for the sure-fire hit ‘Street Soul Music’ and Adi Winman, the producer who mixed the album helped Subsource move to a new level with the epic, tense tracks ‘The Ides’ and ‘Charge Me’. And then the icing on the cake – a re-written version of ‘Parasite’ entitled ‘The Reason’ began to make the summer 2009 festival crowds go crazy: insatiable fans ate glow sticks at Glastonbury, ADD kids started mosh pits in the Rock Sound stage at Guilfest and indie-folk fans chose Subsource over fellow headliner Laura Marling at Blissfields. The source of the sub had growled for long enough and was now throbbing with menace and intent. The Subsource debut album ‘Tales From The Doombox’ was finished and just needed the skills and ears of mastering engineer John Davis (The Prodigy, Pendulum) to conclude what could be the album of 2010.