Birdy Nam Nam - Defiant Order EP

Birdy Nam Nam
Defiant Order EP
OWSLA (2013)
By Luke Nozicka

Since 2001, French DJ crew Birdy Nam Nam has been traveling, improvising, and reinventing the way the world views turntables. Birdy Nam Nam consists of four unique musicians who all have something different to bring to the table. Their debut album, Birdy Nam Nam, was released in 2006 under Uncivilized World Records, which featured 18 original tracks. iTunes places the album under the hip-hop genre, but with their diverse style, sampling, and unconventional techniques, it is much more than that. Recently, Birdy Nam Nam teamed up with DJ/Producer Skrillex, who now releases their music via his notorious record label, OWSLA. On January 22, 2013, OWSLA released the quartet’s newest single, Defiant Order EP. The original track is full of garage drum samples and a crunchy sliding melody that will guarantee to be stuck in a listener’s head for days. The synths used in this track come off sounding like real distorted instruments, like a phased out electric guitar. The samples are also something worth talking about in this tune, which sound as if they were taken from a trippy old movie. Birdy Nam Nam is famous for making tracks change frequently, with breaks and new sounds, so that a song can completely change within seconds. It also consists of four remixes, all by different experimental genres. The first remix, by Breakbot, adds a bit of a jazzy swing and old school vibe to the EP. The funk-filled remix has a beautiful piano melody and cool vocal samples throughout. The most popular song on the EP is the remix by the up-and-coming trap artist UZ. This bass-filled remix is definitely the crowd pleaser of the EP and makes up for the other two not so popular remixes on it.