The Herbaliser | |
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Also known as | The Herbaliser Band |
Origin | London, England |
Genres | Hip hop, jazz, funk [1] |
Years active | 1995–present |
Labels | Ninja Tune, !K7 |
Members |
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Website | herbaliser |
The Herbaliser is an English jazz hip hop group formed by Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba in London, England during the early 1990s. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Although currently releasing on their own label and having previously been signed to !K7 Records, they were one of the best-known acts from the Ninja Tune independent record label. They have released 12 albums, including two DJ mixes: one for Ninja Tune's Solid Steel series and the other for Fabric's Live Mix series. The Herbaliser's album Same As It Never Was was their first release on !K7 Records. Their latest album Bring Out The Sound was released in 2018, on the BBE label.
Jake Wherry has also recorded solo tracks as The Meateaters, released on the Parisian Big Cheese label, and has worked with The Propheteers.
Ollie Teeba is also part of Soundsci with Jonny Cuba of Dynamic Syncopation, Audessey ex-Mass Influence, U-George The Hemisphere and Oxygen Sputnick Brown
Jake Wherry grew up in South West London and played guitar and bass in a number of jazz, funk and rock bands in his teenage years. During this time, he met Patrick Carpenter aka PC, later one of the DJs behind DJ Food, and through him became aware of the Ninja Tune label. Ollie Teeba, (real name Oliver Lawrence Trattles) began DJing at 15 and played his first live sets to London audiences a year later.
Wherry and Teeba met years later at Wherry's Traintrax studio, and began recording together, collaborating with DJ Malachi, Kaidi Tatham of Bugz in the Attic and Ralph Lamb of Easy Access Orchestra. They developed a jazzy instrumental style of hip hop, due to an absence of available rappers. They passed their recordings on to Ninja Tune bosses Matt Black and Jonathan More of Coldcut and were signed shortly thereafter.
Inspired by the funk bands of previous decades, rather than performing simply with turntables, Jake Wherry decided to take a seven piece band on tour, which included Tatham, Lamb, Andrew Ross, Micah Moody Jnr and percussionist Patrick Dawes. The band performed in Toronto, Ontario on 1999. [7]
As they progressed, they gained access to guest vocalists for appearances on their records, including What? What? (aka Jean Grae), Roots Manuva, MF Doom, Seaming To, Rakaa Iriscience of Dilated Peoples, Blade, Phi Life Cypher, Bahamadia, Dream Warriors and Insight .
The pair were subsequently employed to produce music for the likes of Motorola, the soundtracks to Guy Ritchie's Snatch and the PlayStation 2 game Tony Hawk's Underground . They were also commissioned to write the theme for ESPN's primetime NFL show Sunday Night Football . [8]
The group have also provided production for artists including T Love, Princess Superstar and remixes for artists including DJ Food, Raw Stylus, Push Button Objects, Jaffa and label-mates Coldcut's "Atomic Moog", which reached number one on the UK singles chart. [9]
In 2009, the band released its second live band album, Session Two. This was recorded at The Easy Access Orchestra's studio and mixed at Jake's Train Trax Studio.
Jake Wherry was featured in the Gimlet Media podcast Heavyweight featuring the collaborative production of a track with a fan. [10] Since 2021, Wherry has been working on tracks with Portuguese-British singer Maya Blandy, [11] with "Stardust", her debut track released in 2023, [12] featuring house vocalist Kathy Brown.
As The Herbaliser:
As The Herbaliser Band:
DJ mix albums:
Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the 1980s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, which featured cut-up samples of hip-hop, soul, funk, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia. According to Spin, "in '87 Coldcut pioneered the British fad for 'DJ records'".
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Session One is an album released by The Herbaliser on 26 May 2000. While the band had been together since the mid-1990s, contributing to and promoting Herbaliser's largely electronically produced albums, this was the first studio album recorded with a live band released under the group name The Herbaliser Band.
Remedies is the debut album by The Herbaliser, released on Ninja Tune in 1995.
Blow Your Headphones is the second studio album by The Herbaliser. It was released on Ninja Tune in 1997. It peaked at number 24 on the UK R&B Albums Chart.
Take London is the fifth studio album by The Herbaliser. It was released on Ninja Tune in 2005.
FabricLive.26 is a DJ mix album, mixed by English band The Herbaliser, recorded as part of the FabricLive albums and released on the Fabric label in February 2006.
Xen Cuts is a compilation album released by Ninja Tune independent record label on their tenth anniversary. The album was released in a four-piece vinyl recording (ZEN49), as two-disc CD (ZENCD049) and as a three-disc CD (ZENCD049X) versions, with the third disc "Xen Cuts Missed Flipped and Skipped" also released separately (ZENCD49C). The compilation consists mainly of B-sides and other tracks previously unreleased on CD.
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Herbal Tonic is a 2010 compilation album by British rap duo the Herbaliser. It was released by the Ninja Tune label on 14 June 2010. It consists of songs from the group's previously released albums on Ninja Tune, which were released between 1995 and 2010.
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