Martin Dawson (King Roc / Two Armadillos - Berlin, Germany)
Martin Dawson (King Roc) - Besti-Mix 13 by Elite Music Management

Martin Dawson (King Roc) - summer mix by Elite Music Management

Here's the story: King Roc wrote dance music, once. He's half of the wildly successful techno / deep house duo Two Armadillos with Giles Smith of UK club pioneers Secretsundaze. He DJs Brazil, China, Australia, a couple of times each year each as well as regularly playing the big European and UK clubs. He lives in Brazil and Berlin but really he's a nicely-mannered gent from southwest London. And he's carved out quite a job reinterpreting big names from Future Sound of London to New Order to S-Xpress to new blood like D-Nox and Beckers.

But he doesn't like to talk much, and two years back he was fed up to the back teeth of 4/4 for the dancefloor. So when he met Australian artist Seb Godfrey of Drunkpark, they hatched a plan together - a concept album that won't explain itself (but it started with some ideas about dreams, intuition, happenstance and coincidence).

No talking. Big secret theories. A concept album. Starting with: A set of four collectable 12"s (each with a lovely poster!) Artwork by Seb, each 12" with its own theme - the first of which was "chance". Music by King Roc - but the 12s had to run from ambient to trip-hop to indie to Orbital-style oldschool to techno. And then, for the final CD, each track had to be ripped apart and thrown back together for its reappearance on the CD - with trip-hop transformed into a beautiful vocal number, or techno into lush, beatless cinematics. Voila - the CD you have now, Chapters.

The hype has been building for some time now round the 12"s and their visuals - an increasingly rare, non-disposable approach to vinyl that King Roc paid for from his own pocket. "They're the best thing King Roc has ever done" - IDJ. "[This] will be the year King Roc claims his crown ... [the 12"s are] dreamy ... elegant ... gorgeous ... bittersweet ... melancholy" - DJ mag. And that's alongside the more experimental names raving about his Two Armadillos work, like Agoria calling it "perfect for summer days".

What's the concept for the album? You can explain these things, says King Roc, but it sounds arrogant. The questions have to be more important than the answers. There's some maths in there (Phidias Gold is sequenced to follow the timing of the "Golden Ratio" of intervals of 1.68), there's a dream about an enormous plant made of brick that inspired the entire fourth EP, Dreamattic, and Flow is about those few times in life when you are totally ego-free and entirely in the moment.

But the background can be saved for Seb's video for track one, the Beginning, (9 Mar) and for the website (15 Mar). There are no direct answers. There are only chapters in a person's life...

King Roc's Top Ten - April 2009

1) King Roc - Beautiful But Weird -Mutual Society
2) Stimming & Einmusik - Magdalena - Diynamic
3) Mahilas Safras - Cards - Greatstuff
4) Alex Kenji - Adelante - Hotfingers
5) Mandy & Booka Shade - Donut - Get Physical
6) Ramon Tapia - Mi Esposa - Greatstuff
7) King Roc - Tirades - Mutual Society
8) Falko Brocksieper - Covert Action - Tuning Spork
9) Ricky Stone - In Miami (King Roc rmx) - Flat Belly Recordings
10) Ido Ophir & Gabe - MAstermind - eVapour8

King Roc Discography
Releases    
Details Label Year
Feed On Me (12") Back Yard Recordings 2004
Pressure/How Big Is It (12") Kingsize 2005
Prime Evil (12") 1 Trax Recordings 2005
Better Ways (12") iO Music 2006
Take Me Away/Mirror to Infinity (12") Bugged Out 2006
The Tip (12") Love Minus Zero 2006
Tirades of ENV (12" pic) KRPD 2006
Welcome to Zion (12") Simple Records 2006
Chapter 1: Lunaris (12") Mutual Society 2007
Flicker EP (12" EP) Love Minus Zero 2007
Chapter II: Communique (12") Mutual Society 2008
Chapter III: Equilibrium (12") Mutual Society 2008
Chapter IV: Dreamatic (12") Mutual Society 2009
Chapters (CD, Album) Process Recordings 2009
The Beginning/Lunar People (file, MP3) Process Recordings 2009
     
Remixes    
Mad Inside (12") Stud Recordings -
Do It Proper (Justin Robertson/King Roc remixes - 12") Azuli Black 2004
Plastique EP (12" EP) Beautycase Recordings 2004
Saturdays (File, MP3, EP, 128) Modular Recordings 2004
Atlantis (12") Skyline Records 2005
Crazy (12") Sanctuary Records 2005
Left/Right Switch (12") Involved Productions 2005
Peas (12") Most Records 2005
Trash The Can/BangBang (12") Umami 2005
Caper (12") Playtime (2) 2006
She's Hardcore (12") Toolroom Trax 2006
The Pressure (12") Passenger 2006
Today (disc 2, 12" single) Skyline Records 2006
True Faith/Regret (12") New State Recordings 2006
Vertigo (12", white label) Bay Street Recordings 2006
We Have Explosive/Lifeforms (cdr, sampler, promo) Virgin 2006
Good For Me (12") Anjunabeats 2007
Stakker Humanoid 2007 mixes Jumpin' & Pumpin' 2007
Summerdaze (CD, Maxi, promo) Big Star Records 2007
1000 Seconds (remixes) (file, MP3, EP) SoulCandi Red 2008
A Sort Of Homecoming (file, MP3) Anjunadeep 2008
Beefcake (file, MP3, 320) Sprout Music 2008
Hive (12") Exceptional 2008
Cooling Down (file, MP3, 320) Blue Tunes Recordings 2009