HoFuN
Charade Charade is a piece originally commissioned by Addictive Television for an ITV 1 late-night series called Mixmasters. The original film has lapsed into public domain and those Audrey Hepburn eyelashes were just too much to ignore. Si Begg did the music and the subsequent result was exhibited at London’s Institute of Contemporary Art, shown at The National Film Theatre, Raindance Film Festival and at numerous events worldwide. It has been hailed as one of the definitive film-remixes.
The Noodles Foundation and HoFuN
HoFuN is a loosely woven set of multimedia artists. It initially formed to produce the CD-Rom that went out with the first 1000 copies of The Complete Death of Cool, a bonkers compilation album compiled by Si Begg for The Noodles Foundation in 2002. This release was sub-titled ‘The World’s Smallest Film Festival’, and with video compression techniques as basic as they were then, squeezing four and a half hours of some of the most peculiar film and video on the planet on to one CD was no mean feat.
The founders Robin Mahoney, Anthony Alexander and Kel Mckeown then found themselves being invited to all sorts of happenings to show their stuff; sometimes as standalone AV mixes and other times as not-so-pretty pictures on the walls behind performances by the likes of Si Begg (he took us on tour), Tim Wright (he did too), Cursor Miner, Lusine ICL, Point B, Kelpe, Abstract Knights, Con Brio, Tipper, Crunch, Pole, Bitstream, Subjex, Claro Intelecto, Kansas City Prophets, Abstrakt Knights and Robin’s two-year-old son Sid.
HoFuN’s eyewatering output continues with a series of UK Festival dates planned for summer 2007 and a full-length DVD album in conjunction with Si Begg, which is almost completed.
HoFuN is a loosely woven set of multimedia artists. It initially formed to produce the CD-Rom that went out with the first 1000 copies of The Complete Death of Cool, a bonkers compilation album compiled by Si Begg for The Noodles Foundation in 2002. This release was sub-titled ‘The World’s Smallest Film Festival’, and with video compression techniques as basic as they were then, squeezing four and a half hours of some of the most peculiar film and video on the planet on to one CD was no mean feat.
The founders Robin Mahoney, Anthony Alexander and Kel Mckeown then found themselves being invited to all sorts of happenings to show their stuff; sometimes as standalone AV mixes and other times as not-so-pretty pictures on the walls behind performances by the likes of Si Begg (he took us on tour), Tim Wright (he did too), Cursor Miner, Lusine ICL, Point B, Kelpe, Abstract Knights, Con Brio, Tipper, Crunch, Pole, Bitstream, Subjex, Claro Intelecto, Kansas City Prophets, Abstrakt Knights and Robin’s two-year-old son Sid.
HoFuN’s eyewatering output continues with a series of UK Festival dates planned for summer 2007 and a full-length DVD album in conjunction with Si Begg, which is almost completed.
Who the hell are these people?
Robin Mahoney
Robin started out a child. At the age of 24 he formed an allegiance with veteran filmmaker Mike Sarne and produced The Punk (aka The Punk and The Princess). The film went global with a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and worldwide cinema distribution. Off the back of this Robin got to direct his first movie, the feature documentary Glastonbury The Movie, a rollicking no-holds-barred trip through the world famous music festival. This too was released theatrically and also had the honour of being the very first feature film to be Lottery awarded. He also produced and edited Glastonbury and soon moved on to edit a number of other films, short and long. The short film Cereal Killer, that he cut and associate produced with director Robert Heath, won the ‘Canal Plus - Best European Short’ award at the prestigious Brest International Film Festival. He also achieved certain notoriety as editor of the seminal late night Channel 4 show The Trip, a favourite with insomniac clubbers of the late 90s. He also makes music, if you can call it that. And some of his tunes were on The Complete Death of Cool. Lately Robin has produced several music DVDs under the banner of his production company Mensch for artists such as Basement Jaxx, The Prodigy, Pixies, White Stripes, Peaches, Badly Drawn Boy, Dizzee Rascal, Lemon Jelly and Electric Six. He is just putting the finishing touches to a special edition DVD for last year’s ‘Amnesty International - Secret Policeman’s Ball’. The triple disc box set of Glastonbury The Movie is also in the pipeline and features over nine hours of video and a staggering 24 hours of audio.
www.myspace.com/robinmahoney
www.hofun.org.uk
www.menschfilms.com
Si Begg
Toying incessantly with genre conventions, Begg's bass-heavy tunes span the dance music spectrum; from breaks & electro funk to techno and UK Garage. To wean himself off a teenage diet of prog rock, electro and free jazz, Begg joined the notorious Cabbage Head collective in the early 90s, working with noted dance producers like Cristian Vogel, with whom Begg formed the Mosquito label. Since 1994 Si has released a deluge of tracks, recording as Cabbageboy, Bigfoot, Buckfunk 3000, SI Futures and under his own name on labels such as Ninja Tune, Chrome, Mille Plateaux, Tresor, Eukatech, Language, Mute and his own Mosquito and Noodles imprints. Solo albums include Director's Cut and (as SI Futures) The Mission Statement. Crammed label subsidiary Language issued the debut Buckfunk 3000 EP toward the end of 1996, and the 1997 Buckfunk 3000 LP First Class Ticket to Telos was followed by a Si Begg full-length for Caipirinha - the 1998 Commuter World. His plethora of remixes includes Sven Vath, Leftfield, DJ Rush and Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
www.sibegg.com
www.myspace.com/sibegg
Kel Mckeown (aka Kelpe)
Kel Mckeown’s alter ego is Kelpe. After tentative pre-teenage forays into cassette recorders and joke rap bands with friends, Kel devoted most of his teenage years to bone splintering skateboarding mishaps before deciding that loops and samples might provide him with a safer past time than trucks and wheels. Despite adolescent attempts at computer music resulting in "crap rave efforts" made on a Commodore Amiga, the process of sampling and sequencing provided him with a discipline and focus that is of fundamental importance to the creative process that he currently employs in the execution of his gob-smackingly impressive "head-nod-tronica" work-outs. Coming to the attention of DC Recordings in early 2003, his first release for label was the 12" EP The People are Trying to Sleep, a wide-eyed carnival of fractured beats and warped electronics. This was followed by the critically acclaimed album Sea Inside Body (September 2004) and most recently, by bedroom discotheque 12" Sunburnt Eyelids (October 2005). With influences ranging from the bleeps & bass of classic Warp artists to the spectral folk of John Renbourn, and the minimalism of Steve Reich to the percussive space-scapes of Do Make Say Think, the diversity of the music that inspires Kelpe finds reflection in his own sonic adventures, informing his ever-evolving sound, combining as map and compass to guide his lunar-bound b-boy throwdowns. It's an awareness of this constant state of flux that shapes his recordings. Kelpe is currently recording his second album for DC Recordings, due in 2007.
www.myspace.com/kelpemusic
Anthony Alexander
Little is known about the history of this elusive chap. Spirtual founder of both Cabbage Head and HoFuN, he has known Mr Begg since they were both knee high to a grasshopper.
