Here it here first
June 7th, 2007 by rui
The Big Chill + CDR is perfect match. The Big Chill’s commitment to new music is long-standing. From adventurous booking of artists early on their careers (Amy Winehouse, Roots Manuva, Zero7 all performed long before they became household names), to the Readers Wavs project – fresh talent has always been a key feature of The Big Chill. You probably know that already, but what is CDR?…
CDR started five years ago by Tony Nwachukwu, (Attica Blues, NEPA Recordings) as a small club night where a selection of music producer friends and artists heard their latest productions on a quality soundsystem. Since then, it’s mushroomed with a regular roadblock at Plastic People,
CDR:Specials at The Big Chill House, UK tours, international projects, nominations for ‘Best Club’ in Radio1′s Worldwide Awards, and now, The Big Chill festival Club Tent’s CDR Session.
This is no ‘demo’ or ‘showcase’ session. This is proper, new music, so fresh from the studio that the ink’s still drying on the disc and some of the tracks are still called ‘untitled’, or ‘that one with the crazy brrrrrrrrrwhup bassline’.
Tony explains the philosophy behind CDR…
‘CDR is an open platform for anyone to bring along music they’ve been working on, and hear it in a non-judgemental, neutral listening zone. We pretty much play anything, even if it’s not to our taste, becauseit’s still interesting to hear people’s creative decisions and tracks evolving. When people hear their tracks played for the first time – and
applauded – it totally changes their lives and perceptions of their work.’
And it’s not just unsigned artists. Established producers like Mark Pritchard and Bugz in the Attic regularly roadtest tracks at CDR, no doubt secretly writing notes on the crowd reaction before heading back to the studio to tweak the EQ on the snare, ramp up the bass and extend
the middle eight that got the crowd whooping.
Marsha (aka Marshmello, sometime stage MC and longtime Big Chiller) has been a CDR regular since 2003 when she took her first track along. Marsha says
‘CDR’s a brilliant forum for artists who never get to hear
their music on a really large soundsystem. It’s about a love of music and knowing that if you need to create music, then you can – and should go ahead and do it.’
Gavin sums up CDR brilliantly:
‘It calls everyone in – poor, middle class, white, black Asian, young, old, men, women, mothers and even people who don’t normally make music – and invites them to speak in their own voice.’
If you make music, and want to hear your tune booming out in the Club Tent at Eastnor, do what Marsh says and ‘go ahead and do it’.
Get involved!
There are two options for getting your tracks to burntprogress. You can email them in advance of the festival, or you can bring a CD to Eastnor.
Online you should upload your track via yousendit.com and then email the link to cdrw@burntprogress.com. To get it there in time for the festival, please make sure you send the email (including track and contact information) by 12 noon on Thursday 2nd August.
At Eastnor there will be a postbox at The Big Chill Shop. Drop an audio CD of your tracks in the postbox by midday on Saturday, remember to write the track and artist details on the CD.
