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Growing up in
Peterborough, NH, a small town in north eastern US,
Alister Johnson drew his first influences from the
sounds of hip-hop producers DJ Premier, RZA, Pete Rock
& Large Professor. Armed with a turntable and Cool
Edit, an audio sampling program popular in the day, he
soon began making hip-hop beats of his own. Now, at 22
years of age and based out of Toronto's The Hive music
studio, Alister aka DJ Catalist, is hard at work
making a name for himself, and here's why....
Alister
has given his special touch in production to remixes for
artists such as FEIST, Hird w/ Yukimi Nagano, LAL,
Layah Jane and more. New Orleans based MC Voice
is yet another artist he has lent his musical styles to,
creating the beats for her single Know Rhythm (Public
Transit Recording). Some of Alister's upcoming projects
will include remixes for James Bryan's project
Sunshine State and the fabulous Elizabeth
Shepherd Trio.
When he is
not working on tracks for other artists, Alister is making
music with a team of writers at The Hive for
television shows and commercials. Featured on spots for
Visa, Kellogg's and Samsung, as well as contributing
tracks for 2 shows on the Discovery Channel, Alister is
definitely being heard throughout the music industry.
As
Catalist, Alister has produced for local MCs Louwop
the Dirty General and Scot Free; but he is perhaps
best known for his production efforts on the 'unofficial'
remixes, the DJ Catalist re-edits, of Nina Simone,
James Brown, Love, Ruth Brown, and Billie Holiday.
These demo versions have been circulating among DJs around
the world, and have been playlisted by the likes of
Quantic, and Gilles Peterson on BBC Radio One.
His debut
single, "Like A Star" (Do Right) features the
vocals of Vancouver based Alonzo as well as local
artists Chris Rouse & Leonie Griffiths. In
fact, Alister loves this song so much that he has created
3 versions, all of them unique and outstanding - take your
pick. And just to show his versatility, Alister has also
given us a slightly harder, Bruk-Beat killah "Feel It".
Whether he
is creating music for television commercials, or music for
a hip-hop MC to spit their best over, Alister has become
one of the fastest uprising artists to look out for in
2006. Stay tuned for more from this multitalented and
diverse producer.
Alister
Johnson
MySpace
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