At Versaris & Asstrio

Where nonsense fashion finishes and subsoil musical heritages meet in respect. Where rap reasoning is sincere and not only an outward show of mediocre self-workshipping. Where using your own language, Catalan, is not an esthetic choice but obvious and natural. Where, as Gramsci said, culture is not a pile of encyclopaedically (dis)ordered informations, but the next stage towards class and anticapitalist counciousness... Right there is where At Versaris’s rap starts. Next 2011 At Versaris will be touring with a new show backed by Catalan #1 jazz-rock trio Asstrio.

Knowing more about At Versaris & Asstrio...
At Versaris & Asstrio musical affaire started such as most of the good musical projects in Catalan scene are used and supposed to happen: it wasn’t a laboratory experiment by a record label or management agency, either it wasn’t a brilliant idea by a illuminated programmer or by an operetta musical critic. It all started in the summer of 2008, some days after Rodrigo (one of the MCs of At Versaris, a non-conformist and concious rap band from Barcelona) and Arecio (third-part and keyboard player of Asstrio, a powerful ruthless jazz-rock trio from Barcelona) shared stage with other acts they played with back in those days. That meeting took place some weeks before At Versaris and Asstrio, their respective main bands, were going to play together in a two bills night show at Teatre Grec of Barcelona within the summer festival promoted by Mas i Mas. A message throught Myspace from Asstrio to At Versaris was the key:

‘Hey boys! Let’s do something together, no?’. The answer from At Versaris was simple, too: ‘Yes, let’s do it’.

That’s how this promiscuous and tantric love and music story started to be forged. We had a chance to see them together again on May 2009, in a new meeting within the Expressió Directa festival. The two bands shared stage again and, for a few tracks and minutes, they showed how to deal with an explosive live show. The general audience feelings and also musicians’s was that something should be done. And that’s why you can find the highliting featuring of Asstrio playing two great riddims as a backing band in At Versaris’s new album A Cada Passa (Propaganda pel fet! – 2009).

SHOW INFOS
Now they start a tour together with a new show called Per principis elegants (‘for elegant principles’), where both bands have worked a new repertoire: Asstrio delivers live new riddims for At Versaris’ tracks such as “Orfes d’occident” or “No és vendre”, and the MCs Pau and Rodrigo from At Versaris sing brand new lyrics over instrumental tracks of Asstrio (songs from As Soon As Possible -2004- and Desplazamiento -2007). Moreover, both bands will meet in common refferences with covers of RATM or Gentleman. Pure dynamite! From At Versaris and Asstrio clash it works out a shaking rhythm discharge where hypnotic keys from Arecio Smith’s board, the bitting and unpredictable guitar of Santi Careta and atomic drums of Santi Serratosa are at the service of the pungent rhymes of Pau Llonch and Rodrigo Laviña. Among the musicians and between both bands, there’s an flawless dialectis that sets Music and Lyrics to a higher level: extreme communion, absolut feeling and bolted energy. In the same way USA bands such as The Roots or Guru, At Versaris and Asstrio work without sampling, they dress their rap with organic textures: funk, soul, jazz-rock, drum’n’bass... Their formule ships an ocean of black and dancing sounds, allying elegance and toughness in favour of, paraphrasing one of At Versaris lyrics, “the most beautiful ideals” to overcome “the classical obstacles”.

We are not talking about a great show, about two specially clever MCs or about a trio of perfectionist musicians with a wide experience. We are talking about a passional and extreme way of conceiving and living what music is, diametrally opposite to the cheap diametrally opposite to the cheap offer of prefabricated product and insubstantial hype that nowadays rules in the ill-treated radio stations from all over the planet. For elegant principles is the confirmation that the selfdemanding work from the basis, the ideological and musical coherence and the independence of commercial imperatives are the best guarantee of success and quality.

Knowing more about At Versaris...
The first LP by the band formed by Rodrigo (Pirat´s Sound Sistema), Pau (La Pupil•la and Batzak) and Bel (DJ), Va amb nosaltres (It goes along with us), talks about life in the neighbourhood, that quarter where is almost as important looking after your mates, after what’s going on and what’s not, as getting enough money to survive. All this goes along with the big range that Hip Hop can embrace.

At Versaris were awarded by Enderrock as the “best upcoming band 2007” and were well recognized by the specialized media and public.

In 2008 they published their second album called “La vida són 2 dies” (‘Life is two days’), a 4 track EP supporting Barcelona