Circus Maximus (Review)

Hong Kong/Tawianese-Australian DJ/beat producer and Herd member Unkle Ho’s second album has drawn considerable debate in Sydney hip hop and electronica circles since a review of it by Emmy Hennings (sic) in the current issue of quarterly underground music magazine Cyclic Defrost described it as ‘globe sampling lounge music’ that is ‘inescapably cheesy’, failing as ‘a serious meeting of musical cultures’ and relying on a ‘lazy unimaginative reggae beat’. In the same issue, Unkle Ho himself, aka Kaho Cheung, recently returned to Australia after living in China for six months, talks about some of his favourite music in the imaginary ‘Lounge at the End of the Universe’, discussing British electronica artists Squarepusher and Coldcut, singing the praises of Czech-based Romany gipsy singer Ida Kelarova – sister of extraordinary Brno-based singer-violinist Iva Bittova, who is something of a Czech folk Laurie Anderson – along with dub legend King Tubby, recently discovered Victorian blues singer C.W.Stoneking, and Balkan-Australian singer Mikelangelo of the Black Sea Gentlemen. Cheung recounts his delight and relief at getting the thumbs-up from Mikelangelo for his 2005 album Roads to Roma, with its ‘ripped off gypsy beat’, and subsequently working with him on the current album.

Kaho also talks about living in the Czech republic for 3 months in 2000 where fellow Herd member Bezekatron ran a youth hostel, and discovering Czech and Rom music, which ‘makes you feel immediate sympathy for the injustices that Romany people have suffered’. When I interviewed him on the release of Roads to Roma he described his Czech sojourn in Český Krumlov, ‘a town that’s two hours south of Prague. It’s got the second biggest Castle in the Czech, and the town centre is a full UNESCO protected area, it’s all cobblestones and really awesome buildings that have been preserved for ages, and all the restaurants and hostels are in all the really nice old buildings. It’s situated on an S-bend in the river, with the town in the centre of the bend, so it’s pretty scenic as well’. Subsequently he worked with Bezerkatron and Herd MC Ozi Batla on the track ‘Unpredictable’, which had sections in Czech and Spanish – a first for Australian hip hop.

As a largely sample-based laptop beats producer, working in the same multicultural field as Curse ov Dialect DJ Pasobionic, Unkle Ho is liable to draw criticism for his use of seemingly ‘exotic’ second-hand sources for his electronica-reggae-Blakan dance beat music output, but a closer look at the credits of Circus maximus shows him collaborating with former Sydney-based avant garde musician Clare Cooper on the Chinese guzheng and harp, along with her co-conspirator Clayton Thomas on double bass. Cooper and Thomas have organised the NowNow festival in Sydney for the past few years, and recently moved to Berlin, fed up with the miniscule recognition given to experimental music in Australia. Elsewhere Sonia Tsai provides some gorgeous Chinese-styled guitar phrasing, especially on the final track ‘Silent Song’, while Herd members Jane Tyrrell and Traksewt supply vocals and clarinet, and Mikelangelo provides further clarinet and some admittedly rather caricatured Balkan-style English vocals. So despite his arguably self-aware reliance on samples, Unkle Ho has also called on the resources of a diverse lineup of local musicians who give a depth and body to this album which cause it to transcend any reduction to global lounge music, and distinguish it from an unfortunate tendency in some Australian-based world music towards a semi-parodic stereotypical gypsy ‘flavour’ (as in Cat Empire and Monsieur Camembert). Not to mention the pretentious appropriation of nom de plumes from deceased Dadaist poets.