One Flew into the Cuckoo's Nest: Birdy Namnam at Yugong Yishan Tomorrow Night

Birdy Namnam are no mere knob twiddlers - the four-man French DJ "band" take an instrumentalist's approach to turntables and collaborate to create beat-laden compositions out of sampled sounds and instrumental parts pressed on vinyl.

Taking their name from a Peter Sellers film (The Party, 1968), the group met as members of DJ crew Scratch Action Hiro (winner of the 2000 World DMC Team Championships) and went on to take the title themselves in 2002. Four years later they dropped their self-titled debut album and have since released three others, including their most recent LP Defiant Order.

In a DJTimes interview from 2006, Birdy Namnam member Little Mike described their influences as including "African music, hip-hop bands, electro bands, punk, reggae" and disavowed their turn-tablist roots by claiming DMC is "for nerds":

That is my opinion. It’s about technical things and stuff like that…and some guys playing in a room, and standing there watching the Internet, and everyone’s like “Wow, wow, you scratch, wow.” I don’t care about it—we just want to do music. We take our inspiration from other bands. We go to concerts, we listen to all types of bands…

They are touring around Asia this month and will be at Yugong Yishan tomorrow night playing their distinctive mix of "hip hop infused with a heavy dose of R&B vocal chops, space-jazz synths, IDM digital breaks, US house and techno bodygrooves."

The show starts around 9pm and tickets will be RMB 200 at the door (RMB 150 pre-sale). Contact Yugong Yishan and check 8633link.com for more information.

Birdy Nam Nam - Defiant Order by xserenz