Big Phony is a Seoul, Korea based singer/songwriter, originally born and raised in New York City.  Off stage Big Phony is simply known to his friends and family as “Bobby.”

At an early age Bobby began secretly practicing his older brother Eddy’s guitar in defiance of warnings that he would surely get his ass kicked if he so much as laid a finger on it.  Because of Bobby’s dedication to and success in surpassing his brother’s skill level, mom eventually transferred ownership of that guitar over to Bobby.

At the age of 14, with 2 older brothers away at college and grad school, Bobby’s family relocated to Los Angeles, leaving him in New York City so he could attend the legendary School of Performing Arts and Music and Art, which has produced a long list of talent including Al Pacino, Adrian Brody, and Bela Fleck. Living alone at such an early age, Big Phony devoted his time to writing in his New York City apartment.

With strong religious conviction, Big Phony left for Boston to attend a Christian college to study to be a pastor. He quickly realized that this was not the path for him and returned his focus to his music. After college, he moved to Los Angeles to be closer with his family. It was in Los Angeles where Big Phony began his pursuit to be a singer-songwriter. He quickly built a devout fan base with his songs and performances. In early 2006 he returned to New York to build that same kind of following and began splitting his time between both cities crashing on couches and aerobeds.  In 2011, Big Phony made the jump to Asia and where he currently resides in Seoul, South Korea.  There he continues to write & perform, and furthermore, he is learning more about his "roots".

Big Phony delivers honest lyrics and natural talent. There’s a fragile but controlled quality in his voice, which he attributes to thin apartment walls and easily disgruntled neighbors. Fans of Elliott Smith, Bright Eyes, and Death Cab For Cutie will instinctively gravitate towards Big Phony’s sound.

Channelled madness – the sound Dawn of Midi spent years shaping, culminating into their most mesmerising work yet

With Dysnomia, the Brooklyn-based group Dawn of Midi abandons improvisation in favour of composition, utilising sophisticated rhythmic structures from North and West African folk traditions to weave a sonic tapestry of trance-inducing grooves. From close up one may see only dots, but when stepping back an undulating image reveals itself. “We didn’t want to create anything cerebral,” says Belyamani, “we wanted something visceral, something that would awaken our instinctive dance impulses.”
Having met at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles in 2006, bassist Aakaash Israni, pianist Amino Belyamani and drummer Qasim Naqvi found their original rapport through late night tennis matches on the campus court. The chemistry they founded there eventually led them back indoors to improvise together; something they did in total darkness to deprive themselves of all their senses except the crucial one – their hearing.
The manner, by which a trio of solely acoustic instruments ends up sounding like electronic music, has to do with the unconventional ways the group play their instruments on Dysnomia. The record comes to life in the trio’s critically acclaimed live shows, a test of endurance and trust that involves performing their hand-looped acoustic minimalism note for note, just as the compositions were recorded. Dawn of Midi’s sets are as energetic and rhythmic as a seamlessly mixed DJ-set, mesmerising fans in the same way the group’s favourite experimental and electronic acts have for decades.
The album was recorded to 2-inch tape at Waterfront Studios in Hudson, New York - a former church that was purchased and transformed into an analogue recording playground by the great engineer Henry Hirsch. Once the band visited the studio and met Henry, an expert in analogue recording equipped with a vintage Helios console, 16 and 24-track tape machines and a superb collection of microphones, it was obvious they had to record there; it was miles ahead of anywhere else they had visited. Rusty Santos then mixed the album to make sure it would hit as hard as the group’s favourite electronic albums do in spite of it being entirely acoustic.
“We wanted to make a record that sounded both musically futuristic and sonically vintage,” explains Israni, “and since the album never saw a proper international release, it is very exciting to see what might happen when more people are exposed to it. And to be aligned with Erased Tapes, whose enthusiasm for the music they release has done a lot for exposing unique instrumental and electronic music, makes it that much more interesting.”

Dysnomia will be released worldwide on June 1st, 2015 through Erased Tapes – available on 2x LP, CD and Download.

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