Take two hip hop aficionados that live, eat, and breathe music, mix with equal parts talent and drive to push the sound to the next level, and you get Circle Research. Astro the Guillotine and Nix the Finger Prince embarked on their mission to spread Hip Hop love many, many moons ago when practicing scratches and beat juggling for their high school breakdancing crew. Obsessive about classic hip hop, jazz, funk, soul, and all fusions in between, the duo began throwing parties around Toronto in 1992. Armed with six turntables, a slew of emcees, and enough wax to keep the party bumping for days on end, Circle Research caught the attention of hip hop heads all over the city. Soon enough they were playing shows with legendary Toronto crews like the Oddities, Cryptic Souls, the Quartertones, Abs and Fase, and DJ Serious, and getting busy onstage with Jungle Brothers, Del, Dan the Automator, Rahzel, Casual, and Aceyalone, among others.

It was just a matter of time before someone thought that the hilarious onstage antics of Circle Research and their extended family would make for great radio. Fast forward to 1998, when the infamous "The Circle Research Show" hits the late-night airwaves and blows open a new chapter of hip hop radio in Toronto. Teaming up with clever emcees like Aceiks and Paul Ryger, as well as DJ Roshi and other DJ brethren, Nix and Astro provided choice head-nodding cuts, entertaining banter, and oddball callers dropping hilarious freestyles to their growing base of dedicated fans. Running for six years strong and counting, the show is a hip hop staple in Toronto.

Of course, when you spin other people's music, soon enough you get the itch to create some beats yourself. Nix and Astro began amassing various bits of gear and started beat construction in 1994. Honing their technique through experimentation with samples and original composition, their first 12" release "Speak n Read" (2002) cemented its place as a bonafied classic the moment needles dropped onto its grooves. With side A featuring a stripped down beat peppered with Speak n Read vocals and back-n-forth rhyming by Abdominal and Nix, and side B featuring a jazz swing lick with Psy of the Oddities weaving tales, the 12" cleared record store shelves across Canada, England and the US, and collected impressive reviews from fellow producers and the underground music press.

"Mulligan Stew" album marks the next phase of the Circle Research story. Beats concocted at CR's T.O. Headquarters are sauced with thoughts from some of Toronto and New York's most talented underground rhymeslayers such as Abdominal (Abs and Fase), Psy (Oddities crew), D-Sisive, Aceiks, Mike Swift (HeadBop Music), Ken Boogaloo (Wee Bee Foolish), Subconcious (Third Earth), Tara Chase, Yushin, JSN, Paul Ryger, Planet Pea (Cryptic Souls Crew), Phatt Al, Kamau (Pangea Project), J-StaRRRrrr!!! (Oddities), Equinox 199, and Bookworm (Oddities). Flowing like those stop-record tapes you made off the radio when you were just a kid, the mood moves from straight-up braggadocio to thoughtful reflection, clever wordplay to pure jokes, all couched in some of the freshest production ever laid down.

Watch out now, 'cause the Circle Research phenomenon is taking Canada and the world by storm!

Visit Circle Research's MySpace page: http://myspace.com/circleresearch

Tune into the "Circle Research Show" Wednesdays 2-4 AM EST on CKLN 88.1 FM in Toronto www.ckln.fm