Additional Details

Additional details

Been Together Since: 2003

Sounds Like: An earful of lyrics and melodies sewn together with funky beats and experimental sounds.

Members

Gilbert Galvan, aka Caption -- vocals
Christian Saldivar, aka 25CRUZ -- vocals
Dan McKinney -- drums, noise
Tom Sutherland -- keyboard
Bobby Hinojosa -- turntables
Eric Edwards -- producer
Josh Nolan -- bass

MP3S

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Seventy

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Got Worms

Audio Interview

Discography

Avenue of the Observatory EP, 2005

Where To Buy

• iTunes

Review

Houston hip-hop isn't all Paul Wall, Slim Thug and Mike Jones. It's not all bling and spinning rims. Our city's diverse music scene is broad enough to birth independent hip-hop musicians such as the Heights' Studemont Project.

"We're just as enthusiastic about promoting our music as the mainstream artists, but I don't know what else we have in common with them," says songwriter and rapper Gilbert Galvan, aka Caption.

When the group formed in early 2003, Galvan was writing lyrics in the style of Digable Planets and A Tribe Called Quest, and says the songs were traditional hip-hop with beats, samples and scratches. But as the group has evolved, he has integrated his deep admiration for Radiohead and Björk into his writing.

This may be one of the reasons why the group has been asked to perform at South by Southwest twice.

"Our stuff now is experimental and music-driven," he says.

"There might be no ending, just a long jam from song to song, and we've gotten more into ad-libbing within our sets. Sometimes other hip-hop groups look down on us because we're trying to do something different in the name of hip-hop. Stop calling our music `hip-hop' if it's a problem for you."

The members of Studemont Project - including lyricist Christian Saldivar, aka 25CRUZ; Dan McKinney on drums; Tom Sutherland on keyboard; Bobby Hinojosa on turntables; Josh Nolan on guitar and producer Eric Edwards - are in their early 20s and have day jobs ranging from janitor to waiter to painter. Onstage, there's a camaraderie between Saldivar and Galvan, who play off each other's words with responses or echoes. The rest of the group appears almost as engineers, heads down, concentrating on their work. It falls on Saldivar and Galvan, then, to be the faces for the group, which they are with closed eyes, swinging arms and reaching fingers.

The group will release its first professionally-produced EP, "Avenue of the Observatory", this week. On it, Galvan and Saldivar spit rhymes over tenebrous streams of sound. They touch on social commentary in "Seventy", but the rest of the songs are about performing ("Left on Teetshorn") and defending their style of hip-hop ("Got Worms", which features a graceful string sample).

Saldivar and Galvan look to Bad Brains, Beastie Boys and Definitive Jux Records as the torch bearers for their style, which doesn't have rigid guidelines and develops organically with the times.

The group named itself after a street in the Heights because "That's where we go to practice, perform and make music," Galvan says. "Growing up, we all lived near Fitzgerald's and we spent every weekend seeing as many live shows as possible. Seeing energetic performances made me want to perform."

"Avenue of the Observatory" is being released on the group's record label, Esthetic Noise, which features prominently in Studemont Project's future goals.

"I hope we can put out our friends' music," Galvan says. "We'd like to build a touring family of diverse artists. There's so much more than just hip-hop. We don't want to be just hip-hop. We want to be music."

-- Sara Cress | October 27, 2005