Beat Assailant & Danny Wild have been working toward this album for the past two years. Following the arrival in France of the American MC in early 2003 and the release of Hard Twelve in 2005, they did not merely retreat to the studio to sculpt more beat and work on his prose; they underwent an almost constant process of touring with a 10 musician acoustic setup to spread the message worldwide.

This tour consisted of over 200 dates in a variety of musical environments, which acknowledged the acceptance of Beat Assailant and his vital nine piece band as genre spanning artists, equally at home playing at the refined Nice Jazz Festival supporting Kanye West as they are playing to a grittier, more urban audience all over France; places such as Printemps de Bourges or Francofolies, or even the European Paleo Festival in Switzerland and the Sziget Festival in Budapest.

This punishing tour meant that the Beat Assailant sound has been honed to the point that the live show is evident in the energetic sound of the album, which was eventually recorded in one week to capture the two years live experience on record. The result is an album that seizes multiple genres generally overlooked by urban audiences: genres such as funk, jazz and rock - but always hip hop. By incorporating these styles into their sound, the team makes them bouncy and accessible, and the amalgam created helps to illustrate the origins and possibilities that lie latent in much other modern urban music.

Imperial Pressure was produced by Maxime Lebidois, aka “Danny Wild“, with Nicolas Gueguen and Thibault Renard adding arrangements, ensuring the album stays true to a distinctly urban sound.

The nine piece band consists of eight highly talented musicians (drums, bass, guitar, keyz, horns section, singer Janice Leca and Beat Assailant), who are complemented by DJ Pfel (BeatTorrent & C2C Crew) on the decks. The sheer opportunity to generate music that this quantity of talent offers has resulted in a seventeen track album with interludes and narrative, which could be perceived as a concept album were it not for the stand-alone quality of tracks such as Better Than Us, Charlie White and Crash The Party.

The result is an album that combines conscientious lyrics with an upbeat sound that never wanders too far from traditional hip-hop aesthetics. This album will appeal to a wide spectrum of music fans, while retaining its core audience. Beat that!

http://www.myspace.com/hardtwelve

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