Tea Sea Records head honcho, rapper and producer, Tom Caruana has been making the finest quality beats for some years now straight outta Brighton – and it has to be said that the man’s no slouch when it comes to output. In the last year alone (that I know of) he’s dropped the cracking LP Rebel Without Applause with MC Elemental (featuring a Count Bass D hook-up), his own solo LPs It’s So Different Here (as himself) and Further Into The Woods (as Tom Bombadeal), remix albums for both Large Professor and Doom and production credits on both Boston rapper Insight’s most recent single True Or False and Koaste’s Billy The Kid EP. Amazingly, on top of all that and the fact that it’s Christmas – he still had time for a chat. Here’s what he had to say…
Monkeyboxing (MB): Tell us a bit about Tea Sea Records.
Tom Caruana (TC): I set it up in 2005 to put out various projects that I was working on. I had put some music out with other labels including Breakin Bread, Son and Fluid Ounce, but felt that I wanted to be in control of something that would let me put my music out when I wanted. The main starting point was getting the website set up, I could use it to sell CDs, post up free downloads, podcasts and have somewhere central to promote stuff.
MB: I understand Cup Of Brown Joy which you made with Elemental and which featured on the excellent Rebel Without Applause LP (released earlier this year) seems to have become something of a YouTube sensation. Have any of the trappings of fame been forthcoming as a result?
TC: I remember watching a rough edit of the video and thinking it was gonna be really good, but a few weeks after it was up on YouTube it went from hundreds to thousands of views in a matter of days! We couldn’t believe how well it had been received. On my website I can view how people arrive at the site and the majority of the traffic is via YouTube, so that’s the main impact on the label. I regularly sell Rebel Without Applause CDs around the world because of that one song/video.
MB: You get any contact off Doom after that remix LP you did of his stuff? He could do with some decent beats lately.
TC: I sent it to Count Bass D and with any luck he’ll forward it on to him. Not holding my breath though.
MB: Hip-hop seems to be suffering a major shortage of credible party-starting bumps at the minute both underground and overground – discuss…
TC: I don’t really keep up with things much, I keep looking back to old music. The recent hip hop albums that I like are the new Large Pro, Grand Puba, Raekwon and the new Method Man & Redman.
MB: Tom Caruana. TC, Tea Sea, Tom Bombadeal – are there any other aliases we should know about?
TC: Not really for me, but there is another project coming soon called The Eclectic Maybe Band which is basically me playing instruments and producing, it features singers and other instrumentalists. But no other specific aliases of mine, yet!
MB: What’s forthcoming on TC?
TC: The Eclectic Maybe Band, mentioned above, I have one album ready to go and another in progress. The 2nd Eclectic Maybe Band album will be the thing I am most proud of musically. I’ve got some more remix albums coming soon: Wu Tang, J-Live, Brand Nubian. I’ve got an album with Grand Agent that’s finished, it just needs to be mixed and mastered and will be out around April next year. Finally the proper Bombadeal album will hopefully be finished in 2010, but it relies on a lot of other people. ‘Further Into The Woods’ and ‘Songs From The Wood’ were just little tasters.
MB: Who would you most like to collaborate with?
TC: The whole of the Wu-Tang, but that’s cos I’ve been remixing them loads recently.
MB: Any shout outs or last words?
TC: Keep Boxing Monkey boy!
Tag Archives: Tea Sea Records
TOM CARUANA: Interview
ELEMENTAL & TOM CARUANA: Rebel Without Applause – 2009 – Album review
Rating: 
If there are two obstacles that white boys in hip-hop who haven’t had an especially hard life must surmount it’s that they are white boys in hip-hop who haven’t had an especially hard life. Consequently, if they are to make any credible impact in hip-hop they’d better be both witty and good. As luck would have it, Elemental and Tom Caruana are very witty and very good and I have no hesitation whatsoever in pronouncing Rebel Without Applause flames.
Stylistically, it gives a nod to De La, or perhaps more accurately The Pharcyde (rather than the P.E. you might be expecting from the title), in it’s ‘fonk’iness, sample-packed production and the way it’s dotted with skits that are actually funny – a quality of humour that, indeed, pervades the whole album. At the same time there’s a ‘knowing’-ness that brings this bang up to date and the humour is unmistakeably British. Cup Of Brown Joy is a hilarious illustration of exactly what I’m talking about. When I first heard it I thought Edan had teamed up with Noel Coward. Consider for a minute that only a UK hip hop crew would ever make a track about tea and then piss yourself as Elemental delivers lines like, “Using a teapot and mug of fine china/ Been hooked up to IV for constant supplies/ I know a drip for my urges might verge on perverted/ But for earthy brown tea, I’m certain it’s worth it.” A stand-out moment of psychedelic neo-Victorian rap genius. Fuck me – there’s a soundbite! But while this is perhaps the most overtly comedic track on the album, don’t even think about mistaking the pair as some sort of comedy-rap novelty act – the beats and cuts on offer are top-notch and the rhyming superb. The track that immediately precedes it, What’s/ Where’s The Action rests on a dusty funk break and makes use of an early Jurassic 5 soundbite, showing Caruana’s knack for dancefloor bump. Elsewhere, this dynamic duo get a heavyweight seal of approval in the form of the presence of Count Bass D on Pay Me A Visit. When I saw he was featured I was expecting some sort of ten second phoned-in couplet but, no, the man is very much in effect over large swathes of a beat that Doom would have been glad to have on his latest LP. Used To Say’s chilled vibe demonstrates Caruana’s ear for a fine sampled vocal hook which in this case sounds like it was plundered from sixties psychedelia. Elsewhere, Town Called Nowhere is an acknowledgment of the Elemental’s small town origins, referencing rural drug use, poverty and crime, Livin’ In The 90s gently takes the piss out of 90s hip-hop while downbeat gem 0800 Sickie provides textbook guidance for bunking off work.
Rebel Without Applause is a rarity in these latter days where the facility to download individual tracks is seeing off the dominance of the album as the punter no longer needs to tolerate filler or indeed anything that fails to cut the mustard properly. This is a hip hop album that you’ll still be listening to as an album long after other LPs have been reduced to a couple of tracks on an iTunes playlist. Procure yourself a copy without delay!
Out now on Tea Sea Records
