EVOL INTENT: ERA OF DIVERSION

A modern civilization on the brink of collapse, its inhabitants lulled into a false sense of security by reality TV while its government plunders its resources, waters down its Constitution and engages in a deadly war. Into this surreal reality - imitates - sci-fi scenario, hot Atlanta-based drum & bass production crew EVOL INTENT sounds a wake-up call. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, perhaps it’s only fitting that the way back be facilitated by EVOL.

“ERA OF DIVERSION,” EVOL INTENT’s 19-track debut artist album, stands out not only for its courage to be socially relevant but for the depth and range of the production talents of this powerhouse trio. The lyrically informed by hip-hop and punk, the 19 tracks encompass dance floor d&b, free-form d&b, IDM, hip-hop, punk, and even dubstep.

Moods range from the apocalyptic vision rhymed by MC J Messinian (Planet of the Drums) in “The Foreward,” and the heavy artillery, alarmist Rage Against the Machine-esque “Smoke and Mirrors” featuring the incendiary Aaron Bedard of Atlanta hardcore punk band BANE, to the existential glitchy experimental electronic noise crackling with intellectual energy in “Double Glock,” to dance floor destroyers like the sly shout-out to d&b messageboard DogsOnAcid.com, “Dead On Arrival,” to the sweetest, most ethereal flights of hope and possibility in “I’m Happy Your Grave in Next to Mine,” “The Oscine’s Lament” and “Maybe We’ll Dance Tomorrow.”

Formed in 2000, the industrious EVOL INTENT can boast releases on prestigious d&b labels such as Renegade Hardware, Barcode, Outbreak, and Human, as well as creating their own Evol Intent Recordings label with its own distinctive artist roster. Dieselboy, America’s foremost d&b DJ and founder of Human, commissioned EVOL INTENT to execute a mix of Human tracks for the critically acclaimed concept album, “The HUMAN Resource.” EVOL INTENT was selected to be part of Grammy Award-winning avant garde fusion pioneer and master bassist Bill Laswell’s celebrated d&b album project “Inamorata.” Their discography also reveals EVOL INTENT as prolific high-profile remixers.

Other EI milestones include the signing of “5:30 pm” by Turner Broadcasting for an [adult swim] “Bleach” anime promo shown on Cartoon Network (“It felt awesome seeing the promos on TV,” says Gigantor), and having two tracks in the “Need for Speed” videogame soundtrack. Look for EVOL INTENT live PA’s (first was in Baltimore in April), a new clothing store including designs by The Enemy and VNMBLK, and their video for “Maybe We’ll Dance Tomorrow” with animation by J. Beckmann.

BBS News tracked down the ever-touring GIGANTOR, KNICK and THE ENEMY via e-mail at various positions around the globe to get the scoop on EVOL INTENT’s latest release:


BBS News: How did you come up with the moniker, EVOL INTENT?

Knick: I just sort of spit it out one day. We had started the project and just needed an identity. I originally wrote down “Evil Intent” and then I changed the “I” into an “O.” People think the whole ‘Evol spelled backwards is Love” thing is intentional, but it really wasn’t. It was a happy accident.”

BBS: There are photos of fans holding up giant yellow EVOL INTENT foam rubber hands - what was up with that?

Gigantor: Haha. Generally we try to come up with something to market our branding at Winter Music Conference every year, and that’s where the hands started. We first had the “Number 1” hands, and last year we did the middle fingers. I hope we didn’t disappoint people this year too much since we were pretty tapped out with the record release and didn’t come up with any silly WMC promotions.

BBS: Does Evol Intent have a typical methodology for creating tracks?

Gigantor: Usually one of us starts a tune then sends it to someone else. For the most part, many of the tunes on Era of Diversion were started in Reason, but lately we’ve been getting into Ableton Live. We send the tunes back and forth between the three of us until we feel like something is finished, then I mix it down in Logic Pro on my studio machine. We tend to have anywhere from a couple to eight or so tracks in progress at any time. We always have several files that are floating about between us.

BBS: How did the theme for ERA OF DIVERSION come about?

Gigantor: We all pay attention to politics and the media, and generally we were feeling pretty lost at the general state of things over the last seven years. I guess a breaking point was stepping back and looking at the world and what’s going on in it, and then turning on the TV news, be it Faux News, CNN, MSNBC, nightly news on a local network, etc., and seeing sensationalist stories on the flavor-of-the week celebrity taking precedence over what’s really important.

Perhaps it’s the quest for ratings. Perhaps people are just stump dumb thanks to pathetic education standards these days, who knows? Either way, we felt like in America people are being robbed of their perspective on the real world, not to mention losing their rights and liberties. If we had a better informed populace perhaps we could reverse this scary trend. We figured what better way to make a statement and have our collective voice heard than to have the “Era of Diversion” as the running theme for this record?

On a more basic note, AJ gave a tune the working title ‘Era of Diversion,’ and we liked the name a lot and felt it summed up the theme we were going for.

BBS: How did you and J Messinian (James Fiorella, Planet of the Drums) create “The Foreward,” which sets the stage for ERA OF DIVERSION?

Gigantor: Messinian did his own lyrics. We sent him the track. He cut the rhymes and sent them back to us to drop in the tune.

BBS: How did your collaboration with the California prog rock band The Sound of Animals Fighting come about?

Gigantor: We previously remixed a tune of theirs called “The Heretic,” and asked them to collaborate with us on a track for this LP. We started the tune, “The Curtain Falls,” exported the parts. They loaded them up, played parts, then sent the parts back. Upon getting the parts we mixed the tune and it became what it is.

BBS: What was the inspiration for the dreamy montage of early jungle sounds in “South London”?

AJ: This was actually a song I started years ago. One day I was going through old files and dug it up, showed it to the other guys and we decided to update it and put it on the album. It was definitely inspired by the early jungle days of chopped up breaks and sub bass.

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