FM | CLASSIC ALBUM
Fort Knox Recordings, 2008
Hailing from Washington, D.C. And formed in the melting pot of the city’s incendiary live music scene, stood four funky brothers. United on a quest to ignite dancefloors into a white hot frenzy, they mined and refined the finest elements of hip-hop, Latin, breaks, soul, reggae and electro into 24 carat grooves.
Inspired by the bullion depository of the same name, Steve Raskin, Rob Myers, Sid Barcelona and Jon Horvat (R.I.P.) bunkered down in the studio and began to forge their own brand of beats under the hallmark of the Fort Knox Five. And, as they reached debut album time, the team was striking musical gold at a dazzling rate.
“We’d all been having success in other groups like Thunderball and Thievery Corporation, and releasing tracks under the name DC’s Finest,” says Steve Raskin. “And then we compiled our biggest singles as Fort Knox Five on our 2006 label compilation, The New Gold Standard – which was technically our first unofficial album.” That LP hoovered up all of the group’s most popular songs, so work had to begin anew on what would become the official debut, Radio Free DC.
Tied together with radio dial-tuning skits, the album acted like a trip through the group’s vast musical influences. Flitting, track-by-track, through funky beat after funky beat. All held together by the vocal talents of rappers, toasters, singers and MCs they’d met on their collective musical journeys. Each vocalist, as vital to the audio alchemy as the core beatsmiths that minted the music that backed them.
“Part of the Fort Knox Five mythos is that there were just four of us, and the fifth member was anyone we collaborated with,” says Raskin. “And we wanted to work with these people to cross-pollinate all our favourite musical influences.
“We wanted to make breakbeat, that wasn’t just in the breakbeat genre. So, we were all about hooking up with these MCs to cross tempos and styles. And this album became this really perfect place to explore a type of music that was all our own. And it owed nothing to anybody. Even genres.”
Track by track with Steve Raskin
“It’s a short skit with us scrolling through an old radio. It’s a bit of a conceit with the record – as we’re switching through genres, you’re switching through channels. In the same way you’d jump around on a radio dial. You might land on a jazz song and be like, ‘Oh, I didn’t set out to listen to that’.
“I was a bit obsessed with foley and sound recordings. I’d go around with my little digital recorder, capturing overheard conversations, things on the radio. There’s still ridiculous amounts of material to go through [laughs].”
“I couldn’t imagine a better track to summarise everything Fort Knox. It’s hip-hop. Breaks. It’s
