Macromantics

Macromantics, a.k.a Romy Hoffman, is the latest verbal vigilante to have bolted from the Aussie hip-hop stables. After starting out in Ben Lee's launch vehicle, Noise Addict, Hoffman made the leap from indie to rap organically and now arrives at the launch of her first long player, 'Moments In Movement'. The album is rich with dense beats and instrumentation allowing her rapido rhyme to roost on topics as wide ranging as Melanie Griffiths and care of the self.

"It was a really automatic process - I still play guitar, I really need that side of me," explains Hoffman. "I never actively, consciously said 'alright now it is time to focus on hip-hop'. To be honest, two months ago was the first time I really said 'this is what I want to do with my life - I want to be a rapper full time and go on tour'. I work so hard at it and I put pretty much a hundred per cent of my energy soul, mind, matter and body into it," she states enthusiastically.

"I feel that what I do is journalism, I can never really stop writing, it is my job to always feedback and regurgitate what has been going on inside myself and the world around me."

On her record, the world of Macromantics swings from the sunny and upbeat Scorch, which is well suited to become a summer anthem with its catchy 'daa da dah' by-line, to the brilliant, more sinister collaboration with Ground Components, entitled Fistful Of Dallas.

"That was the last song I did," Hoffman confesses, "I just knew that I wanted to embrace a dark side. We all have a dark side, the universe is mostly dark matter after all. I am just coming from that position from trying to embrace it. Sometimes you are in control of that darkness and sometimes it is controlling you," she states.

Working very closely with Tony Buchen, who created many of the beats and sounds on the album as well as produced 'Moments In Movement', Hoffman channels the gamut of mood, embracing the dark and light and searching for that elusive balance.

"I think I was more overtly political on the last EP, 'Hyperbolic Logic', because I was living in America then, just after 9/11 and just before George W. Bush was announcing the war in Iraq. When you are in America, you can't help but be political because it is a pretty screwed-up, contradictory place but also amazing and beautiful at the same time. But this album, I think, is more about the self and what the self can do," Hoffman states thoughtfully.

"I get given beats and I just let them marinade in my head, I've got my characters, my voice ready. I really study a beat when I get it, I really sit there with it and try to find the right persona within me to deliver that. The recording process itself was really bang, bang, bang! I think our last session was Boxing Day and the last track was Dark Side Of Dallas," she explains.

"It is a summer album as well. It would be so much different if we had been making it in winter or autumn instead, I think. I also think I am going to stick to this game plan, the same cycle that I am in now. We are starting to work on the next album and, again, Tony is going to produce it."

Speaking from the ABC studios, where 'Moments In Movement' has just been made album of the week by Triple J, Hoffman is pretty happy with the reception her work has so far gotten from the Australian public.

"Yeah, it has been really well received. I just love community radio and the media has given it much love, they seem to be so appreciative and I am appreciative back to them. I guess what I do is a little bit different, it's a fresh outlook on life, it's coming from a young feisty female as well. I guess that gives it added push too. I am just trying to enjoy it all and soak up the moment and not let anything pass me by."

Narelle Walker

Macromantics launches 'Moments In Movement' at the Rocket Bar on Thurs 12 October.