#BEARCULTURE

Hifi Sean (Defected Records; Plastique Recordings) is the songwriter, DJ and producer Sean Dickson.  He is most famously known as front man of the Scottish band The Soup Dragons, responsible for a series of huge hit singles; ‘I’m Free’, ‘Divine Thing’, and ‘Mother Universe’.  Dickson was also the main creative force behind the follow-up project The High Fidelity, a much more artful and intimate project, critically acclaimed for the releases ‘Demonstration’ and ‘The Omnichord Album’ . Those albums included two very rare musical collaborations between Dickson and legendary Radio DJ John Peel and also the late Mickey Finn (one half of 70’s musical giants T-Rex).  In some ways, this was the germination of an idea that would provide the conceptual foundation behind ‘FT’.

 

Sean underwent a total musical reinvention at the turn of the millennium, evolving and transforming his creative energies from a guitar playing band front-man to a DJ.  He began playing house, disco and electro in Glasgow’s burgeoning and innovative club scene, before relocating to London in 2006 where he began to become a staple figure at deep house underground and afterhours clubs.

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On September 19 the artist Hifi Sean released his album ‘FT’.

 

‘FT’, which Sean describes as ‘electronic, psychedelic soul’, sees him collaborate with an extraordinarily diverse range of artists, spanning some of the most significant underground musical icons of the past 40 years.  

 

This stellar collection of artists includes:- Yoko Ono, avant garde musician, conceptual artist and one of the most controversial female artists of all time; Bootsy Collins, widely regarded as one of the finest Funk/R’n’B bass players in the world; Dave Ball, co-founder of Soft Cell, notorious UK synth pioneers with the uniquely sleazy electric soul sound; Fred Schneider from the manic, bizarre and highly innovative US new-wave group B-52’s and Alan Vega, vocalist of the essential and groundbreaking New York duo Suicide. A full list of collaborating artists is below.

 

As the artist Hifi Sean he is now a highly respected DJ and producer, having held residencies at Fire, Ministry of Sound, Shoreditch House and Savage Disco, as well as playing regular international shows in Europe and the USA.

 

In creating ‘FT’, Sean has carefully fused elements from his past and present musical lives into something unique and joyous.

 

The album is a journey through psychedelic dance rhythms, and electronic and soulful moods, drawing from elements of Disco, Chicago house, Detroit techno, and London underground party roots.  ‘FT’ is at once an homage to the foundations of his musical heart and a determined attempt to forge something new and vital from the sounds that have fuelled his life in music.  It is also partly an autobiography in audio of the past 15 years of his life observing dancefloors, and growing as a producer. 

 

The album guides the listener from soulful euphoria to Balearic bliss,  new wave punk-house to conceptual cosmic voyage, ending with the crescendo of the full-on orchestral movement ‘A Kiss Before Dying’ with Alan Vega from Suicide. ‘FT’ carefully underlines the gifts of each of its vocalists, a work which is the instinctive pulse of multiple dances floor tempered and crafted by the nuanced heart and head of the songwriters craft.

 

Calling upon his 25 years of music business experience and connections, Sean worked hard to pull together a collection of quite possibly one of the most impressive range of collaborations witnessed on a single release in recent memory. These transatlantic recordings were made possible through collaborations recorded in London, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Washington, Glasgow and Toronto.

 

Sean says of the project: “I think of this album as a curated gallery of all my favourite sounds and loves, and when moulded together, the record paints a unique and personal picture of my life experience.”