[Dynagroove] AYRO- artist profile

[Jonra XXX]

Jermey Ellis aka AYRO
founder of OMOA music out of the city know for it's inovation DETROIT, 
here's some background on this cat....................................

I FIRST GOT hip to Ayro on Off Limits 3, a CD from Germany's Sonar Kollektiv 
label that was compiled by DJ Dixon – certainly not the first time an 
American journalist has "discovered" Detroit talent thanks to a European DJ. 
Past the Jazzanova and Ursula Rucker tracks lay "Let This," Jeremy Ellis's 
first song recorded as Ayro.

Patiently taking its time, "Let This" builds from uplifting, gospel-flavored 
vocals into a drawn-out bridge of swirling techno-tinged keys and 
drum-machine claps before it hits a massive funk breakdown that rivals 
Parliament at its prime. In the space of six minutes, Ellis manages to 
channel the rich musical history of Detroit and forge his own sound, one 
that is at once full of the future and timeless. The song stopped me dead in 
my tracks and sent me in search of more from Mr. Ellis.

It's been a twisted trail. It was easy enough to find "Let This" again – the 
track ended up being licensed to half a dozen compilations, including one 
from Gilles Peterson. But after getting my fill of Ayro's completely mental 
remix of Jazzanova's "Days to Come" (Compost) and a stellar collaboration 
with his then-roommate John Arnold for Arnold's "We're Not" Ubiquity single, 
getting my Ayro fix became difficult, even though his work has been a 
fixture on the playlists of forward-thinking DJs ranging from Budapest's 
Crate Soul Brothers to Toronto's MilkAudio. "Think Twice," a standout track 
from this spring's Detroit Experiment album (Ropeadope), featured a snatch 
of his solid Fender Rhodes work, and I managed to weasel the Ayro album 
sampler from his label, Omoamusic, which confirmed that "Let This" wasn't 
just a lucky fluke that happened to catch the fancy of DJs around the globe.

The sampler's five tracks run from the banging funk of "Drink" to the 
rolling soul of "Burning Brightly," always keeping Ellis's tenor croon front 
and center, where it's easy to sink into his love-story lyrics. Despite the 
intricate, broken beats, Ellis's firm grasp of melody and structure keeps 
the music song based, rather than simply dance-floor oriented.

But as it turns out, his full-length, Electroniclovefunk, due out this 
month, was not to be had, even though it had apparently been finished for a 
minute. The always present specter of "distribution problems" had raised its 
ugly head, and Omoa was holding tight to what it knew was the real deal.

"It's their first [full-length] release on the label, so they're really 
taking their time and doing it right," Ellis says somewhat diplomatically 
over the phone from Detroit. He originally got involved with Omoa through 
Matt Chicoine, a.k.a. Recloose (Planet E, !K7), who he had in turn met 
through Arnold, who recruited Ellis for his own band, Jazzhead.

Instrumental in Detroit
To call the Detroit scene incestuous might be an overstatement, but there 
definitely is plenty of cross-fertilization going on.

Ellis is used to musical cohabitation and collaboration. Always surrounded 
by musicians, he started piano lessons at age five and continued classical 
lessons through high school while performing in musicals and choirs directed 
by his father. "Jazzhead was how I started to meet all the DJs, and since I 
was a keyboard player, they asked me to play on their tracks." The DJs Ellis 
casually refers to are iconic figures like Alton Miller, Mike "Agent X" 
Clark, and Carl Craig – icons of the area's scene.

In a genre dominated by DJs, Ellis stands out as a remarkably talented 
multi-instrumentalist. At Milk this week he won't be doing the usual 
producer appearance consisting of a DJ set highlighting his own records – 
he'll be rocking it live. "I'm going to bring an MPC 2000 XL [sampler-drum 
machine] and a Waldorf Micro Q keyboard ... and I just freestyle," he says. 
Ellis's version of freestyling includes rocking each machine in succession 
to build the basic tracks and then to improvise over the top, before mixing 
the rhythms and moving on to the next song. Plus he adds his trademark 
soulful vocals – live, of course – to some tracks on the fly. Sounds like a 
recipe for manic disaster, but Ellis's sets at the Detroit Electronic Music 
Festival and this year's Movement have helped build a strong reputation for 
his live shows.

Confidence man
Ellis's steady rise through the ranks and his frequent collaborations with 
innovative musicians who not only define the Detroit sound but also 
electronic music in general have given him a supremely confident air, yet he 
is anything but jaded. In fact, he positively bubbles with enthusiasm when 
describing his plans for a side project to accompany his next album, which 
will focus on collaborations with Detroit musicians.

"The story is going to be how we can clean up Detroit, which is the world's 
most dirty city," he says. "I'm gonna involve all these people, and we're 
going to actually dig in the dirt ... in abandoned lots [by] where I live, 
and for every song I want to create a different plot of plants. So it's a 
real, physical collaboration between the artists and the city."

When I ask Ellis if his cohorts will be down for gardening or think he's 
completely lost the plot, he admits there may be a bit of both reactions. 
"But in a way it's me calling everyone out, because everybody sits around 
and talks about 'Yeah, we're going to make it better!' but then it's like, 
glub-glub-glub," Ellis says, doing an uncanny imitation of a bong hit. "My 
main motivation right now is the intertwining of politics and environment 
and the cleanup of the wasteland that we have to live in."


Do not miss his first LA apperance along with TITONTON DUVANTE & JONRA
      @ the DESIGNFORMS 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY (323)960-4330

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