Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 14/99) - After recently finishing Travis Armour's Travesty -- to be officially released on May 25 at the Gallery -- Big Daddy Productions has just completed U2K: Unfamiliar Territory with Unonymus.

Big Daddy is made up of local musicians Efren Pereira and Jeff Lyons. They've been making a name for themselves in the local recording biz because of the quality of their work and other local musicians have already demonstrated interest in working with them.

Like Armour's recording, this most recently finished one involved Pereira and Lyons writing the music for the project.

"They came to us and asked us if we wanted to record," explains Lyons.

The two rappers that make up Unonymous, Aaron Hernandez and Taj Johnson, had words and ideas in hand.

"Aaron and Taj described the feel of what they wanted to hear and we basically translated," says Lyons, describing the process.

Song by song they went, with one pair describing and the other coming up with the tune.

"We played a beat and they'd rap over it," adds Pereira.

The nine-week process went smoothly but for one song, which is called, ironically, So Smooth. What began as a six-song project turned into a full-length recording with 15 tracks.

"Aaron and Taj gave us a lot of creative freedom," Lyons says.

"We could do what we wanted and they thought it sounded good. We had a lot of creative freedom."

"They let us experiment," says Pereira, adding that "They're some of the best talent up here."

The process always started with the rap and ended with the rap. First the rapping duo would do what they do best and, after the long process of recording bed tracks of rhythm and other sounds, the voices would be recorded.

Because it wasn't what you might call "conventional music" such as blues or rock, Lyons says that he could not think about music in the way he normally did.

"We really had to listen to what they'd say and how they said it."

The recording is currently being duplicated and will be released in early June.

Big Daddy Productions has begun work on a third project, a Cave Club compilation album that will feature musicians who have played at the popular downtown basement club.

All projects are internally funded by the artists themselves and by Big Daddy.