themselves
biography
themselves are doseone and jel. themselves were born as them, a collaboration between two of the most active members of the anticon collective. As them, they released a self-titled album on anticon before realising that they shared a name with Van Morrison's old band. Doh! They changed their name to themselves and released a second album in 2002. Their legendary live show, which they first brought to Europe in November 2002, is a bizarre mixture of cabaret and cutting edge digi-hop.
doseone is the nowhere man out to make the world small and something lovely of his neurosis. This co-founder of anticon and collaboration happy missionary skipped his Cincinnati town for somewhere more dreamt of in the dust of a marketing degree. The man very rarely rests, as well as being a memeber of themselves and releasing two albums under his own name, he is also a member of cLOUDDEAD and its precursor, Greenthink. His collaboration with Boom Bip, "Circle", was also highly acclaimed. This 90's guy au naturel is free of form and a slave to his own scatterbrained genius. "Some kids just gotta be different, some kids just gotta be doseone."
While most hip-hop kids fused puberty with rap, jel spent years 14 and 15 fueling tanks at a Chicago gas station, saving pennies for his trusty and still ticking SP1200 sampler. This drum-thumbed producer's programmed textures unravel the genome of an anticon sound, if there ever was one. jel is the drum machine's premier musician, whose distinct few-bit sound and rhythmic sensibility render him coveted by vocalists far and wide. His frequent Chicago to Cincinnati sojourns to collaborate with doseone took a final turn when they removed themselves to California.
