Tes Rapper Alive! One of the most diverse musicians to date. Tes can belt any riddim and switch up styles on the fly. A truestyle master general who does it all and then some. FRom beatbox wizardry,to freestryles off the top really free, written tunes bonus conceptual imagery, and a ear for sound soon to be top producer in the entire industry.

"Which song from the past 12 months is most likely to gain classic status? TES - New New York because I'm listening to it now and it's a classic. It has both class and ic and I'm sure that it is the definitive." 
- Tim Gane of Stereolab, BBC (Oct 12, 2003) 

"Suffice to say that, whilst the 50 Cent's of the world kick up a storm of controversy along the lines of bullet-hole wounds and outstanding doctor-payments, it's aural refreshment to know that a cohesively less taboo-seeking hip-hop playa is lining the streets with a sound that could easily form one of 2003's most eloquently enticing listens. It feels as if something's happening here." 
- Matt Tomiak, Rock Feedback 


"already a mainstay in the NY underground, emcee/producer tes makes enters the solo fray - after a leaving a slew off mixtape and stages blazing. with the release of this, his debut ep, tes unleashes his incredible, breathless flow on 8 outstanding and impressively varied, self-produced tracks (with the exception of two remixes). the ep showcases a slew of different styles that somehow manage to touch upon elements of organized konfusion, anti-pop's m.sayyid, lateef of quannum, and the legendary freestyle fellowship, yet always retain an individuality that never allows you to lose sight of exactly who you are listening to. to borrow a term from spinna & co. - it's clear from the outset that tes is certainly not your ordinary emcee..." 
- Wax Factor, urban smarts 


"This special agent believes x2 to be a highly advanced form of communication. In addition to the subject's vocal powers, whose cadences play a choppy kind of "jump-rope" code we have yet to decipher, Tes' musical system is also relatively unique." 
- Julianne Shepherd, Pitchfork - 8.2 (May 11, 2003) 


" Tes rips the mic on the Uk Rap radio station Juice FM. While on tour playing shows throughout England and France, Tes stops by the hidden lair to be interviewed by dj host Lady Jay. Tes Uno was one of the very first(if not the first) US rapper to penetrate the UK grime scene. His legendary debut album entitled “X2″ had just dropped on Lex Records displaying elements…" 
- Lady J, Juice FM 


"X2 0ne Liners Tes "x2" "Times Two may be the sh*t hot hip hop record of the year" Vice "Clearly Tes is hip hop's brightest new hope" 9/10 NME "One of the best albums of 2003" Grand Slam "Quirky hip hop that's twice as good as the competition" four strars Muzik "Imagine the precise stutter and pivot of Prefuse 73 coupled with the house quaking ambition of EL-P's dirtiest-Tes captures the shape of things to come" The Wire "A parallel-universe RZA" four stars Bang "Tes is the HR Geiger of sound killing sh*t like no one else" " 
- unknown, Vice/NME/The Wire 


"The long awaited debut album from Tes is finally here thanks to the mighty Lex after a killer EP and 12" for the VF Prods label. Lex have really upped the ante for artwork and packaging, untouchable. Back to the album, Tes is a 21st century emcee - lyrics are dropped ala early Anticon, the time when you could understand most of what Dose delivered, original and fresh without burning the blueprint. The space and freshness this gives the music plus Tes' use of strange and bewildering sample sources only heighten the originality and enjoyment. Prefuse 73 meeting Marley Marl if you must. 'New New York' is unreal, a classic feel good vibe runs through with killer weird uplifting samples and a chorus line that sounds like Run D-M-C meeting Barbarella, I'm confused but this is one killer track. Twelve tracks of truly original artistic but rockin' hip hop with surprises at every turn. A massive recommendation." 
- Unknown, Boomkat 


"Uncut (8/03, p.97) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...12 tracks of sharply intelligent and highly addictive hip hop....Tes drops in his samples with a spare, dub-like delicacy, leaving wide open spaces through which to access his lyrical meditations on the urban treadmill..." The Wire (3/03, p.72) - "...A surprisingly rangy and evocative memoir of a young man growing up alongside HipHop..."" 
- unknown, The Wire/Uncut 


"Terrence Tessora, AKA Tes, hails from Brooklyn, New York and while the city's hip-hop heritage permeates this album, this is no old skool pastiche. Tes draws on a wider palette having spent his time honing his skills with other NY underground heroes like the now defunct Anti-Pop Consortium and Cannibal Ox. As debuts go though, this is a self assured piece of work, and shows Tes has a bright future in the grimy hip hop underworld. Though perhaps a few more excursions onto the dancefloor and out into the sunshine wouldn't go a miss in the future." 
- John Power, Music OMH (Apr 21, 0203) 


"Brooklynite Terrence "Tes" Tessora has served a lengthy apprenticeship in New York's unforgiving rap underground, yet releases his debut (x2, pronounced "times two") on a British label. He belongs to a long tradition: from Quincy Jones to Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix, Europe--and Britain in particular--has always been open to adventurous Americans bearing experimental musical offerings. This is a major stroke of luck for those of us this side of the pond, for Tes has delivered a record, that not only tips its stylistic hat to rap's late-80s' creative zenith, but takes on board that era's urge to unfettered creativity. " 
- Angus Batey, CD Market (Jun 05, 2003) 


"Tes Times Two (X2) (Lex Records) LEX012CD Tes’ X2 album was one of the first full length albums on Lex. Concise, punchy hip hop from Terrence Tessora, hailing from Brooklyn but leaving any kind of old school connotations far behind. The album moves from the dark and moody to disco orchestration of New, New York- single of the month for many magazines and radio shows worldwide. X2 is an East Coast underground essential. " 
- Tom Brown, Lex Records 


"The way in which the familiar tools of hip-hop are slightly repurposed make this album one of the most refreshing things to have emerged from a bedroom studio in a long time. So, another fine talent emerges from the New York underground" 
- James Poletti, UK Launch (Apr 25, 2003) 


"In the fight for most creative hip-hop centre, there doesn’t seem to be only two major contenders. On one side, the West Coast, with the Art fag collective, Anticon, and on the other, New York, with the new breed of new wave rappers largely championed by Lex Records. Hailing from the heart of Brooklyn, where he spent some time on the underground scene, Tes, or Terrence Tessora as he is known to his parents, is definitely one of the strongest talents to emerge from the Big Apple in the last few years. " 
- unknown, The Milk Factory 


"This debut full-length release from Brooklyn's Tes is set in an apocalyptic landscape that shimmies with an ever-present hum of basement-level white-collar frustration. It's enough to make you feel for yourself as much as you do for the man on the mike. Conceptually, x2 (times two) draws as much from the street-battle style on which Tes built his reputation as it does from his scratched-out self-produced instrumental turntabilist style. The first single, "New New York‚" features candid observations on the immediate aftermath of 9/11 with cleverly spliced vocal samples and deceptively upbeat string swells. The album was originally titled Off on Mondays, in homage to Tes' usual day off, when x2 was recorded, which may account for the occasional shouts to the working stiff. Tes, who came up alongside the rooted-in-realism wax charmers Cannibal Ox and Aesop Rock, has the journal-jotting tendencies of the Jukkies, but the seamless pitch of rhyme and beat. " 
- Suzann Vogel, Philadelphia Weekly (Apr 23, 2003) 



Something about the Project: Devanāgarī.

__

"Why Devanāgarī?"

Devanāgarī is a concept, leaked from the Hindu conceptions, which literally means: "sacred expression." It immediately makes clear the reason why I decided to give this name to this composition of people, souls, instruments that find they're maximum sacredness in the Music, their best way to pray something ascetic, ancestral, divine. All we need to cling to something ethereal, abstract, and then make it real: it's part of the combination of strength/weakness that always damns the Human Being. Men are so weak that they need something to be strong, to prove how their apparent strenght makes something real, at least in their eyes. Whether a Christian God, a Pagan God, any philosophical ideology or simply Music. This project is the representation of purity, innocence, "literary childhood" which was mentioned in the first English Romanticism. It's the wilderness where you can run free with your mind and get lost in total denial of every system, every scheme, every rigid structure. Devanāgarī has a logo. A black and white background, connected to the Taoist philology: the good and the bad, two sides of the same coin that must find their equilibrium not in gray, but in the acceptance of both shades of life. There's a tree, then. The tree of life: turned upside down. It's said that everything, if turned upside down, gains 50% of extra beauty. And it's our way of seeing things: we turn our lives upside down, we dismantle every taboo, so that the life takes 50% of extra beauty and makes us more peaceful living, such as Birds. This is the third element: the birds. Perched on the branches of the overturned Tree of Life. They represent our essences. Birds that live, ready to fly, normally perched, defying every law of physics, to an overturned tree. Birds that obsverve, one another, as to create a symbiotic relationship between them. And then there's the "3", on which we play a lot. The "3" as the numerological significance: the perfection of things, the divination of what it represents. For us, our Music is divine and as such, if we were to describe it with a number - because the Music is also and especially mathematics - we would use the "3". A number that easily brings us to the fifth element in the logo: the infinite. What is infinite if not a horizontal "8"? It is a horizontal "8" if not a horizontal "3" mirrored with his twin? That's what we want to leak out from the allegories of our logo: that everything, synthesized, leads to infinity of everything. We are all small numbers "3" which, reflected in the mirror, find our twin, ourselves, only useful to complement one another in such a way as to make us reach infinity. Then there is the sixth element: a crescent moon. Two sides perfectly divided, connected to Taoism on which rests the whole picture, but with a difference: the moon is down, as if the sky had taken the place of the earth and the earth the place of the sky. This is because this is our way of thinking: we start from the sky to get to touch the ground, firmly; not anchore ourselves to the ground and then reach the sky if not with the eyes. You have to dream and do it wisely and courageously. Then there is the seventh element: the North Star. As you can imagine, it is our focus, our course, our safe, steady trajectory that takes us straight to the finish line. What are we, if not sailors, travelers Existence? Everyone takes a step, each flanked on the other and vice versa. Finally, there is the eighth element: the scars at the bottom image on the left. Represent us children of Art, slaves of It and lovers of life. The pain has affected everyone and everyone will come increasingly affected by the forceful hand of Destiny. But this strengthens us and helps us up, just because it's in the infinite that we reflect ourselves and in the infinite there's immortality. This is Devanāgarī... immortality of the spirit through the death of a body. It's a little miracle. - Ego.


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