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Soul-Junk

Soul-Junk is an experimental genre-hopping rock / hip hop group from San Diego, California.

Background

The roots of Soul-Junk began in 1993 when Glen Galloway began experimenting while touring as with his rock band Trumans Water. In 1994, he left Trumans to produce Soul-Junk as an independent solo project, eventually taking the moniker Glen Galaxy.

Musical Evolution

Early Soul-Junk albums (such as 1950) almost exclusively feature low-fi, Indie rock style tracks of Glen singing Bible verses interlaced with instrumental noise tracks. As Soul-Junk gained members its sound advanced toward rock and pop. 1953 and 1954 show signs of this continual change.

1955 shows a transition in Soul-Junk's sound. The double-disk set consists of pop / Indie rock / hip hop influenced sounds. It is also the last disk to make extensive use of Biblical quotes before 1960. While there are fewer lyrics derived from scripture, the albums 1956 through 1958 still reflect on the groups' Christianity based viewpoint, sometimes offering critiques of the Church and in a stream-of conciousness manner. On 1956 the sound shifts toward hip hop, leading CCM Magazine to describe it as "beyond offbeat, beyond eclectic... beyond the grasp of it's market." The albums 1957 and 1958 are based in experimental, abstract hip-hop which sometimes adds elements of "avant-jazz." Soul Junk's "berserk-hop" on these albums is "hip-hop so out-there, so deconstructed, so avant-garde" that it creates a "carnival aesthetic". Between 2003 and 2007, no albums were released. Instead, Glen embarked on an effort to put the entire text of the Bible to music. The first results are 1959 (released in 2007) which consists of Psalms 1-23 verbatum. Glen has also released the entire book of Genesis through his web site.

Recurring members

Glen Galaxy
Slo-Ro (2001 – 2005)

Brian Cantrell (1995 – 2000)
DJ Mizzicah (1997 – 2003)
Ron Easterbrooks (1995 – 1998)
Jon Galaxy(1995 – 2001)
Nathan Poage (1998 – 2000)

Many others are credited per album or track.

Discography

Album naming convention

The first Soul-Junk release was called 1950. Its' name was derived from the musical style of the era, a fusion of rock and free-jazz. According to Glen 1950 "...was a good year for music". Subsequent albums have been numbered up from 1950; Extended Play releases have been numbered down, but futher numbering does non reflect the music of those years. Soul-Junk songs have also been released on innumerable compilations.