Terranova’s mastermind and usual spokesman, Fetisch, is ill in bed. DJ and graffitti artist Kaos is focusing on solo projects and paint cans, while Meister, the third original member, is doing his own thing back in Berlin. That leaves Shapemod and DJ Naughty, the two latest additions to the German Terranova collective, to explain what happened on new album “Hitchhiking Nonstop With No Particular Destination.” “Fetisch went to New York in the ’80s and discovered hip hop,” explains Shapemod from behind his laptop, “but he always had strong punk influences.” That brief story would definitely account for the group’s shift from electronic hip hop (like on debut LP “Close the Door”) to a mongrel hybrid between thrash punk and hip hop (like on this, their second LP). Shapemod is, infact, a guitarist with a record collection no doubt stretching back to early Run DMC and Beastie Boys stuff. Is it him who has planted this new seed in the Terranova camp?
“Who does what when we’re recording isn’t easy to say,” he declares. “Everybody does everything. There isn’t one guy who does the beats and one who does the harmonies. We all have laptops, so each of us works for himself, then we bring it together as a team.”
“Everything is linked together,” adds Naughty, “it’s nothing new. When we first started Djing, the music ran together — ragga, hip hop, punk, rock — something that most 20-year-olds don’t know about. Now, people are producing in that way to avoid being put in a corner. It’s an international sound and this is the first album to make that statement.”
With vocal collaborations from Mike Ladd (“he wanted to do some tracks with us”) and The Slits’ Ariane (“she used to live naked in the Jamaican jungle”), Terranova have opened a new chapter in hip hop.
Terranova “Hitchhiking nonstop…” (!K7/Pias) out Oct 7
