Being signed to a funk/soul driven label such as Jalapeno means that your music must be of a certain calibre in order to get on the roster. Radio Trip is made up of Israeli DJs Ofer Tal (Schoolmaster) and Uri Wertheim (Mixmaster), formerly of The Apples, and judging by their album art of famous artists’ record sleeves covering the DJ’s faces, the range of these guys’ influences is overwhelmingly large.
The musical elements consist of many – blues, jazz, funk, soul, rock – all of them wildly torn up, but beautifully put back together again. The monotone speech samples in tracks such as ‘Home’, ‘Lonely’ and ‘Another piece of Jazz’ are offset by inserting blues, brass and bass. There really aren’t many genres left unexplored on this album and more modern styles like hip-hop get a look-in on tracks such as ‘Computer Singing’.
Turntablism and electronic beats mesh the more blues-based jazz well with the blossoming trip-hop, making the music very reminiscent of greats such as DJ Shadow, Nightmares on Wax and Yoda. Start to finish Music Heads feels like a trip to the record shop, with these guys scouring every section.
If you like your music eclectic it is definitely worth checking these guys out when they make the trip over from Israel to play The Hope on 14 March.