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Such diversity might be in the genes as he was born to Persian statesman and a Portuguese/Irish opera singer. Growing up in LA added to the mix he learnt to play the violin (aged 4), studied classic music and later discovered rock (Cream and Led Zeppelin were apparently early influences).

As a teenager, hip hop and breaks became the overriding love of his life looking for and making samples wherever he could find them. ABCDEFG became the “musical backbone” of LA rap collective Gershwin B.L.X which included [Crag] Malkovich, MOLMan, Omnipresent, Sklim Milx and DJ See Brown. ABCDEFG produced their first album back in 1999 and most of their work since and the group’s solo projects. Dominoes & Dice includes the instrumental versions of two of their best-known tracks, ‘Build Or Destroy’ and ‘Words’.

Of the other tracks in-between, ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’ there’s many little cameo pieces together with longer, more developed tracks. Sometimes this works well like where ABCDEFG meets Daedelus’ Exquisite Corpse on the stuttering, wandering keyboard solo on ‘Feelix’, swing-jazz Gershwin of ‘Frankly’ and the acoustic guitar/flute/strings beats of ‘Romance’.

Not sure the funky-jazz of ‘WWW’ and ‘FUNKY-shklips’ are happening at the moment but ‘Nasty Chuck’ is strangely off-centre and would have been perfect ‘Persian Electronica’ (also see ‘The Persian Underground’).

There’s also some minimal broken beat style chill tracks which I am not sure whether I like or find irritating (see ‘Herb’ and ‘Dream 7’). There’s also a couple incorporating spoken word/children’s TV samples that sound unnecessary, as this is largely instrumental.

And then we get some soundtrack inspired tunes like the unpromisingly titled ‘Platy-pie’ (but very Hitchcock on the beat) and a funky ‘Dime Droppa’. It goes all a bit electro-downtempo at the end with ‘Life Cycle’, ‘Area 51’, ‘Sex Music’ and the best of this lot, the last track ‘Sorrows’.

The trouble with this album for me is, I feel sold short on the ‘good’ short ones (particularly ‘Frankly’) whilst some of the longer pieces could have be edited (like ‘Mrs. Coco’).

Reviewed: ABCDEFG - Dominoes And Dice (69 mins) CD
Tracklisting:
1 Hello (0:10)
2 3sum (1:37)
3 Romance (3:43)
4 FUNKY-shklips (2:51)
5 WWW (3:49)
6 NASTY Chuck (5:48)
7 Mrs. Coco (5:50)
8 Feelix (3:32)
9 Frankly (1:31)
10 LOVE (0:50)
11 Herb (5:56)
12 Dream 7 (3:57)
13 Grover Does Dallas (0:32)
14 Beat Down (2:41)
15 Platy-pie (3:40)
16 Dime Droppa (2:23)
17 Life Cycle (5:08)
18 Area 51 (4:15)
19 Sex Music (3:50)
20 Sorrows (6:31)
21 GOOD BYE (0:18)

Links:
Gershwin B.L.X. “Bassline Xcursionists”
Iranian/Persian Music