CirKus are a

trip hop Trip hop (sometimes used synonymously with "downtempo") is a musical genre that originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as a psychedelic music, psychedelic fusion of hip hop music, hip hop ...

band formed by Burt Ford (Cameron McVey), Karmil (aka Matt Kent), Lolita Moon and

Neneh Cherry Neneh Mariann Karlsson (born 10 March 1964), better known as Neneh Cherry, is a Swedish singer-songwriter, rapper, occasional DJ and broadcaster. Her musical career started in London in the early 1980s, where she performed in a number of punk roc ...

History

DJ and producer Karmil was recruited by Burt Ford (Neneh's husband

Cameron McVey Cameron Andrew McVey (born 11 March 1957) is an English singer, songwriter and music producer. He worked with the bands Massive Attack, Portishead, All Saints, Sugababes/Mutya Keisha Siobhan and his wife Neneh Cherry. He is the father of Ma ...

) as an assistant

recording engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...

. They began to work on their own material at Karmil's home studio in London. Ford was singing, then Karmil's girlfriend Lolita Moon (Neneh and Cameron's daughter Tyson) was asked to sing on some tracks. Eventually Neneh Cherry joined the team and performed rapped/sung vocals. Ford and Karmil convinced Cherry to move to

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

and the band settled in Cherry's country house near

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

and recorded their first album ''Laylow'', released in 2006. They are currently based between

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. ''Laylow'' received negative reviews from the BBC, stating it as "mostly uninspired and smoothed to an unpleasant sheen." The group released a second album, ''Medicine'', in France in March 2009.

Discography

Studio albums

Instruments used on stage

* Burt plays:

Novation Novation, in contract law and business law, is the act of – # replacing an obligation to perform with another obligation; or # adding an obligation to perform; or # replacing a party to an agreement with a new party. In international law, no ...

X-Station The Novation X-Station is a virtual analog synthesizer, audio interface and MIDI controller that was released in early 2004, and made by the British company Novation. It is the end-result of adding an audio interface, a KS-class synthesizer and ...

and

Kaoss The Kaoss Pad is an audio sampling instrument and multi-effects processor originally launched by Korg in 1999. It allows users to record and process audio samples and apply various effects using an X-Y touchscreen. Features Kaoss Pads allow use ...

Pad 2 * Lolita plays:

Roland V-Synth The Roland V-Synth was released 2003 and was Roland's flagship synthesizer at the time. It combines multiple oscillator technologies and a built in sampler. It also features an arpeggiator and COSM filtering to aid the creation of new sounds. Fea ...

(with its

D-Beam The D-Beam was originally manufactured by Interactive Light, as a stand-alone unit, around 1996. It was then soon purchased by Roland Corporation, becoming trademarked and rebranded as D-Beam Controller for their own music equipment. Background Aft ...

system that allows her to control some parameters with her hand) and

Akai Akai ( ja, 赤井, ) is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946. Grande Holdings in Hong Kong purchased the Akai brand, and now distributes various electronic produc ...

MPC * Karmil plays: Blueridge sunburst dreadnought acoustic guitar (Contemporary Series), Gibson Les Paul standard and a

Patrick Eggle Patrick James Eggle is a British guitar designer and luthier. The company he founded in the 1990s, Patrick Eggle Guitars, first based in Coventry and then in Birmingham, is known for designing and releasing such guitar ranges as the Berlin (1991) ...

Berlin Pro V. * Both guitar and bass use line 6 pods. * Ableton Live is used to run triggered drum loops and samples

External links

CirKus
on Myspace

References