...MUMBLES
Born Matthew Fowler on Feb. 17, 1975, producer Mumbles has lived a life rich with musical diversity and spiritual inspiration.
Raised in a family of professional jazz musicians along with older brother Marvin Fowler (Dj Marvski) of the U.N.I.T.Y. Committee, Mumbles developed an ear for jazz and hip-hop music from an early age.
His father, Steve Fowler, a professional flute and sax player, along with uncles Bruce, Tom, Walt, and Ed Fowler formed a musical legacy spanning from the early 70's-80's with the band, the Fowler Brothers Airpocket. Their father, Bill Fowler, was a Ph.D. and professor of music, wrote for Downbeat Magazine, and started the first University Jazz major in the United States at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The Fowler Brothers were brought up playing jazz, each picking a different instrument at a young age to excel in. As they gained mastery and reputation, they formed an early jazz-funk band in Utah called Blind Melon Chitlin, and they moved from musicians in training to full blown masters on their instruments. Soon after the Fowler Brothers started playing with the likes of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Jean-Luc Ponty, Captain Beefheart, Johnny Guitar Watson, Bobby McFerrin, Oingo Boingo, Linda Rondstadt, Ray Charles, Diana Ross, James Taylor and the Brian Setzer Orchestra, to name just a few. Being raised in such a diverse and musically stimulating environment, Mumbles tuned his ear early to the complexities of jazz: rhythm, melody, unusual time signatures, improvisation and harmony.
With the influence of his older brother DJ Marvski, Mumbles turned his attention to hip-hop music from the age of 5 in 1980 and never turned back. As a child he would learn all the lyrics of classic old-school hip hop as it was being released on K-DAY, from Grand Master Flash & the Furious Five, to Whodini, Run-DMC, to Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew. He soon gravitated to listening to every newly released hip hop record that was released through East Coast radio DJ's.
In the late 1980's, DJ Marvski along with Cut Chemist, Chali 2na, and Marc 7 formed the innovative rap group "U.N.I.T.Y. Committee", which forged early demos of sample based hip hop. U.N.I.T.Y Committee later along with the Rebels of Rhythm merged and turned into the now famous rap group Jurassic 5.
It was during these pivotal years that Mumbles, being inspired by the production, DJ skills and record collections of Marvksi and Cut Chemist, decided to embark on his own mission of record digging, sampling, and beat construction while attending high school in the Bay Area. What started out lightly, quickly turned into the digging obsession that most hip-hop producers are familiar with.
As his collection grew, Mumbles tastes in music quickly broadened into including a deep love for straight ahead jazz, rare grooves, jazz fusion, funk and soul. In 1990, a close friend in the Bay Area, Takashi Okimoto, purchased an Ensoniq Mirage sampler, and as they worked over the record bins and sampler together creating their first sounds, Mumbles' career in beat making began. Later, with the acquisition of an Ensoniq EPS-16+, including the expanded sampling time that the 16+ allowed for, Mumbles began putting together his own characteristic sound. Mumbles worked with Bay Area MC's Misfits of Styles and MC Able for his first few demos made. Between the years of 1992-1993, he honed in on his unique style signature and turned out the majority of the beats from Aceyalone's underground classic, A Book of Human Language. Another Series of Classic Beats from that era, which have until now been unreleased, are now available on this site for the first time ever , under the title "Old School Trax".
In 1994, Mumbles met Aceyalone through an A&R of Grand Royal Records, and together they recorded three tracks, two of which appeared on Acey's first solo release "All Balls Don't Bounce" on Capitol Records. The 3rd unreleased track "The Guidelines" became the foundation and the first song and opening track of "A Book of Human Language". In 1997, two of Mumbles tracks appeared on Ubiquity's release "Audio Alchemy" and in the same year, a song was chosen for the first Om Records compilation "Deep Concentration". In 1997, Aceyalone and Mumbles then completed the full length album, "A Book of Human Language", which has since been widely acclaimed as an underground hip-hop classic.
After the completion of this project, Mumbles, who had developed an interest in the spiritual path, spent much of the subsequent years of his life in contemplation, spiritual study, travel and meditation. During this time, Mumbles discovered his gift for singing devotional hymns, kirtan, bhajans, as well as classical forms, and thus started incorporating Indian music into his compositions.
During these years, he composed one of his greatest pieces, soon to be released, a purely sample based meditative symphonic odyssey known as "Crossing the Ocean of Transmigration". Stay tuned for a 2020 release!
Returning from a trip in India in 2003 with his spiritual teacher, Amma - Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, he relocated to Los Angeles and quickly signed a new record deal with the LA based label "Sound In Color". “Transformations /Illuminations” is Mumbles' first solo venture as head album orchestrator and producer, and includes lush soundscapes masterfully blended with eastern and western musical influences. The Album includes guest appearances by Aceyalone, Blu, Flora Purim, the Fowler Brothers, Rebecca Kleinmann and Kamau Daaood, and is saturated with the classic boom-bap and mood based Mumbles sound which he became known for from his tracks years back.
In 2004, Mumbles teamed up with fellow beat maker, Gone Beyond, and the two subsequently signed a deal together for Mush Records, and produced the first of three joint instrumental projects, each expanding the frontier of what hip-hop production can evolve into. Their first joint project, entitled "S.E.V.A." is a blend of world music fusion and hip-hop with spiritual undertones. In 2007, after a successful perfomance at the Walt Disney Concert Hall's inspired DJ perfomance "Pravda", the duo went on to produce two more projects for the LA based "Content Label". The first was "A Duet for Space and Time", and that was followed by the recently released "Notes From the Underground", which was initiated by Walt Disney Concert Hall, and masterfully remixes Russian classical music from the 20th Century - proving in Mumbles own words, that anything can be remixed and made into dope hip-hop.
Mumbles, who was given the spiritual name "Ullas" by Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, which is Sanskrit for Joy, has for many years been devoted to the traditional devotional practices of Kirtan and Bhajan, and is now studying the Classical Hindustani forms of Khayal and Dhrupad. His study of Dhrupad in particular, under the guidance of the Gundecha Brothers, has further refined his understanding of pitch, raga, swar and sur, and this has again added dimensionality to his music and production. Mumbles continues to broaden his musical landscape and has merged his sense of the sacred with his deep love of music.
His long musical study of jazz fusion, hip-hop, funk, classical, and spiritual music is evident and present in his intensely unique style of musical production.
Mumbles lists his greatest musical inspirations as: Amma, The Fowler Brothers Airpocket, U.N.I.T.Y Committee (Cut Chemist, Chali 2na, Marc7, and DJ Marvski) - East Coast Hip Hop Legends: De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Black Sheep, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Eric B. and Rakim, Large Professor and Main Source - Jazz Greats: John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Weather Report, Mahavishu Orchestra - Funk Masters: The JB's, Meters, Cymande - Classical Giants: Ludwig Van Beethoven, Sergei Rachmaninov, Dmitri Shostakovich - Indian Classical Masters: The Gundecha Brothers, The Swamis of M.A. Math, The Bauls of Bengal, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Manjiri Asanare-Kelkar, Shruti Sadolikar and L. Subramaniam.
Mumbles lives and works in Santa Fe, NM, USA.