A PROPOS DE WORDSOUND (Label)

WordSound Recording n'est pas un label, c'est avant tout un état d'esprit. Une démarche alternative teintée "spiritisme". WordSound est un sanctuaire, le dernier terrain vague où s'élabore le dub de l'an 2000 : sauvage, d ur et sans concessions. La terre promise du dub-hop à des allures de no man's land. No fun, le printemps sera noir ! Spectre est l'homme clé de cette conspiration sonore.

A PROPOS DE SENSATIONAL

Once in an eternity an artist will come along who defies any explanation, breaks all boundaries, and destroys all preconceived notions as to what music is. In reggae, we were blessed with the maniacal genius of Lee Perry; in jazz, we had Sun Ra; and in hip-hop no one even comes close to the man they call Sensational. Sure, you got crazy personalities like Kool Keith and Old Dirty Bastard, but Sensational is a breed apart from even these koo-koo MCs. Born (or hatched?) into the world of beats as Torture, a name perfectly befitting his dusted productions and not-ready-for-prime-time style, Torture linked up with the Jungle Brothers when he was just 15. He was ill back then even, so ill, he could rhyme to records by Stockhausen (the German avant-garde electronic composer). Just check out "Ra Ra Kid" from the Crazy Wisdom Masters 10-inch on Black Hoodz. Originally recorded for Warner Brothers in 1992, this stuff is still way ahead of his time.

Sensational currently lives on any couch he can crash on, and makes blazing hip-hop each and every day of his life. Recorded for Wordsound several albums like ‘Heavyweighter’ and ‘Natural Shine’. Plus had a joint venture with: ‘Sensational meets Kohei’ and ofcourse ‘Acid And Bass’ with Spectre.
Sensational also shines as main character in the movie ‘Crooked’. A nearly autobiographic story about Sensationals life. Ignore the plot, Sensational is more alive than ever. Visiting New York you might meet him on the street selling his cd’s to unwary pedestrians.
Until we see him up in Billboard, Hip-hop is doomed for mediocrity.

A PROPOS DE SPECTRE

Skiz Fernando (alias Spectre/The Ill Saint)), journaliste et producteur à ses débuts, Spectre règne sur le royaume underground et depuis 94 protège les âmes malades...C'est dans ces ténèbres que Spectre a développé son propre dub-hop avec les albums « The illness » (95), « The Second Coming » (97), « The End » (99), « Psychic Wars » (03) et son album solo « Transcendent ». Artiste aux multi-facettes, il a également rédigé la bible du hip-hop « The New Beats » (paru en France en 2004, Kargo) et a réalisé le film documentaire « Croocked ».

Spectre est l'un de ses nombreux pseudos avec Slotek, The Eye et The Ill Saint. A cela se rajoute les multiples projets dans lesquels il est impliqué : Dubadelic, Roots Control, The Scarab… Toute une nébuleuse regroupée sous la bannière du label WordSound.
Un label que Skiz Fernando a monté avec le soutien actif de Bill Laswell et qui bouscula le dub en l'hybridant avec le hip hop. Lorsque sort The Illness, le premier album de Spectre en 1995, ce que l'on nomme par contraction le dub-hop est déjà bien balisé. Notamment par une compilation Crooklyn Dub Consortium : Certified Dope Vol. 1 qui réunit quelques uns des principaux protagonistes de cette aventure sombre et urbaine (feat. Sub Dub, Quaballah Steppers, We, HiM, Automaton, LoopDr. Israel, Megabyte …).

Sensational le rejoint avec sa voix gutturale pour une performance imprévisible...

The shadowy figure at the center of the WordSound multiverse who masquerades as Spectre, The Ill Saint, (among other aliases) is none other than Skiz Fernando, a singular figure in the media/arts community. After graduating from Harvard and the Columbia University School of Journalism, he began his career as a music journalist for The Source magazine.

As Spectre, Skiz is responsible for conducting a campaign of “Bass Terror” on the mainstream music industry for well over a decade.
It all started with the Crooklyn Dub Consortium: Certified Dope, Vol. 1 (WSCD003) in 1995, a critically-acclaimed compilation that heralded the birth of the iLLbient scene in New York. Spectre founded the Consortium to unleash sonic unrest on the populace and to bring certified dope from “The Other Side” into the country. After 4 volumes, the power and influence of this dub syndicate has spread to include numerous sleeper cells around the globe, who are ready to bomb your mindstate at a moment’s notice.

Spectre is also responsible for the Subterranean Hitz series (Volumes 1-3), which did for hip-hop what Crooklyn did for dub—unleashing revolutionary sounds into the atmosphere and spreading the ILLness throughout the planet. Of course the Rap Nazis at Fat Beats tried to proclaim these releases as “degenerate art,” but many copies remain, secretly circulating through the underground and studied like lost scrolls. The same goes with the compilation Weapons of Mass Destruction (Black Hoodz), a vinyl tour-de-force featuring killa instrumentals from Sensational, Mentol Nomad, DJ Klos, and the Ill Saint himself. In 2006, Spectre dropped the long-awaited mix tape Tunes From The Crypt following it with his seventh full-length, Transcendent, in 2007. Both releases are only available as a dowload through WordSound Digital.

In 2008, he dropped Internal Dynasty, available as well as a limited edition vinyl on Toolbox Records, France.
In 2009, he collaborated with long-time partner in rhyme Sensational for the magnum opus, Acid & Bass , which took the dynamic duo touring in Europe and Japan, and saw Sensational snag the cover of England's prestigious Wire magazine. Currently, the Ill Saint is back in the lab, working on his next masterpiece, Death Before Dying, to be released sometime in 2010.
He and Sensational are also producing the debut album by Brooklyn's own Black Chameleon.