Sock it to me

illustration by >>FURTHER>> (http://www.flyschooldesign.net/)

um. not since the real estate agents became a term for good, deep homegrown Electronica (rather than some flakey, fakely cheerful grey-blonde salesperson showing strangers your stuff ) have i heard a DIY guy who can fiddle the decks as well as he can diddle sets of instruments(and actually, come to think of it, they didn't really, they just made decks sound LIKE instruments). High time for a first time, then. Enter Sean Ou Tim - best known for his beat keeping with the buried (and annually resurrected) lustrous Lark.

Sean is more than a drummer. But then, drummers usually are. He's a DJ, a multi-dextrous muso, and a man with a vision. I was going to ask him what exactly that vision is, one night in the pit at Klein Lib a few weeks back, but the beats were so bad, and the energy so good, i danced the night away and forgot all about it. Not very professional of me. But then, this is no longer my profession.

Not sure why the man hasn't entered the scene with more of a bang. Maybe we're disillusioned by the braindrain of Electronica's brainchildren that seems to afflict our most manically talented men (case in point, paul ressel - Humanizer, relocated to the UK, and REA who only seem to play far away. REA's triple decker CD sold them successfully to the ad industry, and despite the occaisional show as REA, they've since morphed with cuzz Mathambo into some sweaty X's and a lot of Playdoe. dough. doh. both latter acts get lots more love from beyond our borders, and the former Humanizer seems to have dematerialised)

(ja, ja, sorry luca, for the lingual gymnastics and making you think an ol, but it won't hurt to bend your brain a bit now that you've got to be witty first thing in the morning on a breakfast show that helps earlybirds reach for their first cigarette, or coffee, or breast or.. not).

Anyhow, beside the point. Sean Ou Tim is not going to disappoint you, and if we're lucky, he's not going to desert you, either. He's as solid as they come, happily married, humble, quirky and one of the nicest guys on the scene. I say so because i know so, and you don't know the things i know. so. so he'll deliver. He'll play to his initially modest sect of underground fans one of which i am. He'll grow in stature (does it take longer for those straddling roles to be recognised than for those sticking to the poles of instrument or electronic, i wonder?). eventually he'll suddenly be the IT boy of let's call it local live DJing, and everyone will think they own him because they recognise the delicate syncopations in his sound moving under their skin.

his sound? it's a blend. but, ja, yawn, so is everything in a post post mod blob of electric earth, innit? nod, come on; you know you have to - you're a village kid - global village, i mean. no? villager? true, too. after all you're reading about music on a web page. (music : aural) + (web page : digital)= (you are : global.)

but but but. i'm getting ahead of myself and leaving you behind. Sean. sounds like... hrm. like himself and his identical twin. He mixes jazz riffs and rock beats and bits of funk and psy and soul and ooh some sounds i wouldn't put on a dance floor, but they work so well together under his light touch, and he even moves around the stage like that, like two twins, swiftly and gracefully from drums to decks, picking up and playing all manner of instruments along the way. He's always smiling, and enjoying it every bit as much as the people in the pit. whom he probably couldn't see the night i saw him because it is a well named hole in the wall.

we were smiling too, Mr Sakitumi...

ear to ear.