B2M re-mixed live with Countbounce

Formed in 2004 in their home community of Wurrumiyanga (Nguiu) in the Tiwi Islands, B2M is a six piece R n’ B pop band with traditional flavor. The band is comprised of young indigenous men who sing about the issues that effect their community and young people generally such as drugs, alcohol and suicide. B2M signature is vocal harmonizing with an R n B, hip hop edge.

The show opened with the body of work that the guys had been working on over the period of B2M’s six year life. I was immediately struck by how tight and professional the outfit is. And this comes as no surprise; the quality of music coming out of top end communities is going from strength to strength with the assistance of record labels such as Skinnyfish Music. As Fabian Kantialla, B2M’s vocalist, states in his artist bio, it is bands such as Yothu Yindi and the Warumpi Band taking their music to a mainstream audience that inspires him to take music seriously. The re-mixed concept of the Darwin Festival show finds the established sounds of B2M reworked with digital beats and dynamic live on stage re-mix to their signature harmony.

My only critique of the band is that some of their sounds seem a little dated for a commercial market. Which is why the collaboration with beatmaker, producer and songwriter Countbounce aka Pip Norman of TZU fame is a massive coup for the Tiwi guys. Countbounce is helping the guys update their genre and step up to deliver a stack of edgy new songs. Together they have been working on the band’s latest album, which has a current working title of “22-13”. This is exciting stuff. The guys sing in a fusion of Tiwi language and English, where their older material was predominately sung in English, whilst incorporating traditional sounds with fat beats and their signature harmonizing. “Home” is definitely a single in the making!

B2M played at the Amphitheatre in the Darwin Botanical Gardens. The joy of the Darwin Festival 2010 is the capacity to support local and emerging artists from the Top End. The flow on of this is the enthusiasm with which Top End locals support their home grown acts. The B2M audience was full of Tiwi people who had travelled from the islands to support their boys. The gig was a celebration of culture and community spirit. Tiny children sat in the front and sang along word for word whilst grandparents danced and hollered.

Finally, I don’t feel like I can write about this band without acknowledging some of their achievements. B2M left the Darwin Festival to travel to Shanghai to represent the Northern Territory at World Expo. In 2009, the band honoured their commitment to music as a vehicle for positive outcomes, by delivering song-writing workshops to approximately 400 indigenous people in 11 remote Northern Territory communities. B2M also won the “Emerging Artist of the Year” award at the NT Indigenous Music Awards in 2008.

For further information visit:
The Darwin Festival: www.darwinfestival.org.au/
Or www.myspace.com/bathurst2melville

B2M Remixed played as part of the Darwin Festival
Date: Wed 18 August
Time: 7.30pm, gates open 6.30pm
Duration: 1 hr 30 mins
Venue: The Amphitheatre Intimate, Botanic Gardens
Price: $25/$22