Anamnesis Rocks

For such a small place, my hometown of Chico has a pretty sizable amount of DJs, and a handful of good ones, perhaps even a few great ones-but that's another story. Of course you'd never know that by the amount of coverage our local media gives our little dance music scene (read: zilch) which generally coincides more with the fact that said publications are birdcage lining at best and accident blood soaker-uppers at worst than any sort of elitist tendencies being practiced. In other words, don't read one of our local weeklies while passing through in hopes of reading about music that the kids are ACTUALLY interested in such as Justice, your best hope is to use them as emergency toilet paper just in case things really run off the rails during your visit. You'd be better off picking up a copy of USA Today to read about what's fresh than any of the above mentioned rags. What kills me is that most of the content being churned out in all of the papers is the exact same formula repeated ad nauseum week after week while the real world of music whizzes right on by. Pimple-faced dork is suffering from the angst of being rejected by yet another Chico State rotten crotch while secretly fantasizing that one of the guys from Pavement or any of the other disposable Ross Chandler approved haircut bands (aren't they all interchangable anyway?) is giving them a clandestine reacharound. Hello teenage America, indeed. I would add hooking up with a man-bimbo in a weak effort to be politically correct but let me revel in all of my sexist splendor and matter-of-factly state that the profession of rock critic (paid or unpaid) is that of the lonely, undersexed young (mostly white) man. While I prefer to think of myself as one of " God's lonely men" as opposed to some milquetoast poofter I too tread the same path and have the swingin' gut to prove it. Well in an effort to zero sum this equation here in my stomping grounds I am dedicating a little server space to some local artists that need some much deserved attention. This week the spotlight is on two young 'uns named Billy Hopkins and Owen Bettis, working under the nom de plume Anamnesis, who may well be Chico's great white hope-at least when I look around at the packed and sweaty dancefloor nearly everytime they play. Their deejaying is explosive with Billy opting for the rave friendly sounds of breaks which is complemented by Owen's nearly insatiable lust for Danish techno. They also have important friends (well as important as you can get in a Northern California town of 100,000, which is mostly self-important, but that's gotta count for something) and seem to garner favor with even the most jaded of us, myself included. What sets Anamnesis apart from the DJ herd is that they make their own recordings which puts them in very select company in the impoverished 530 area code. For the record I have decided to lay off the original productions until they can be implanted directly into the listener's cranium so for now boys you are safe near the top of the heap. Laid down by Bettis in Reason Anamnesis' original material ranges in style from deep, sexy minimal with Trentemøller flourishes on "Yosikarite" to the heady pseudo drum & bass stylings of "River", and even skull crushing Otto Von Shirach approved IDM on their latest "Bloodshifter". Overall the edges are still a little rough and the diamond mostly unpolished but let us not forget that said original material is indeed a diamond and does not land far from what Owen and Billy are already doing as deejays. The fact that the duo are in their early twenties and already so coherent in vision bodes well for me and the rest of us bored out of our minds week after week here in in Chico and perhaps for the rest of the world. All I know is that I am already saving gas money by not having to go to San Francisco so often in search of the real deal and for that I am grateful.
Here's an MP3 of "Bloodshifter" courtesy of Anamnesis, thanks Owen!
http://www.zshare.net/audio/309408339a4647/