Music Style breaks, house, good stuff

Instruments didjeridu, guitar, keyboards, hand percussion

Press Reviews SPIN CYCLE (Ryan Hunt aka Frogger Didgeridoo player) The Aborigines have always considered the didgeridoo to be more than just a musical instrument. In fact, these indigenous people of North Australia believe the instrument's powerful drone actually has healing powers. Not healing in the medicinal sense, but healing because its earthy buzz induces relaxation. "There's just something magical about it," says Ryan Hunt aka Frogger, Eklektik/Hektic's resident didgeridoo player. "I mean the drone just seems to lock people in. The vibration is so relaxing -- grounding but at the same time very awakening." It's this powerful therapeutic quality that has inspired musicians to incorporate the primitive instrument's powerful drone in their compositions. Its deep rumble has the power to create atmosphere, making it a must-have for DJs wishing to take their listeners on the "journey" they speak of so often. Every Saturday night, the soulful hum emanates from Ryan's didgeridoo cuts through the din of thundering bass and half beats that spill out onto Folsom Street from the front room of the Cat Club. "The bassline in drum and bass and breaks is often really wobbly, so the didgeridoo adds another dimension to the music," Ryan explains. "I try to follow those basslines and the vocals, keeping up with the rhythms and adding little stabs. It works really well because the music's already so rich. There's already so much texture." While Hektic's audio dictators manipulate their audience's collective head with a blitzkrieg of mental nu-step tracks, Ryan is aiming instead for dancers' souls. With controlled breaths, he uses his didgeridoo to produce a sound like a voice from deep within the earth, which grounds the spirits of dancers lifted off their feet by the syncopated time signatures of the recorded music flooding the monitors. "It's all about circular breathing," Ryan says. "That's breathing in through your nose and out your mouth. It took me six months to learn to breathe correctly and another four months to get a decent sound out of it. With circular breathing, I can play rhythms and even do vocalizations by screaming through the didgeridoo." Ryan's passion for music started at an early age and extends beyond the didgeridoo. In addition to playing the piano, clarinet and guitar, he's finishing up a degree in sound arts. At one point he considered a career as an ethnomusicologist, studying music as it relates to culture. "But I realized I'd just end up writing papers all the time," he says, "and I wanted to get in there and jam. But it was through his study of ethnic music that Ryan first discovered the didgeridoo. "It's the oldest instrument in the world. It's basically a eucalyptus branch that's been hollowed out by termites and there's a bee's wax mouthpiece that I blow into." While the instrument's construction may seem basic, Ryan says that playing it is not. "It takes a lot out of me. Controlled breathing builds up a lot of heat in the body, so it's exhausting. I sweat buckets. I played for an hour and a half straight once, and afterward I was spinning." Ryan says while there are traditional didgeridoo rhythms and patterns he can follow, he prefers to improvise. "I analyze the music so I know when to come in. I listen carefully to what the DJ's doing and try to anticipate what they're going to do next. I'm a math junkie." He laughs. "So when I play is very calculated but what I play is not." At present, Ryan is in the studio recording some tracks that will hopefully hit dance floors later this year. "I have about 15 finished songs and a couple more almost done. A lot of breaks, a little drum and bass and even some hip-hop." In the meantime, he's helping to change the ever-evolving face of electronic music -- uniting the distant past with the not-so-distant future by combining the raw organic hum of an ancient instrument with the cleanly engineered thump of electronica. You can catch Frogger the first Wednesday of every month w/ Polywog & The Tadpoles @ The Hush Hush Lounge and every Saturday at Eklektic/Hektic @ The Cat Club. Ryan can be reached at frogger@onebox.com.

Location Albany, CA - USA

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