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The music of Polarity/1 is exactly what the name suggests: conjoined opposites -- a mash-up of new: cutting edge electronica/hip hop/nu-jazz and old: roots music of America (blues, funk, country, early jazz), Brazil (samba, pagode, etc.) and West African groove science.

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There is also the polarity of Polarity/1's musical output: the dual streams of songs (Prettier Than You and Yankin' The Food Chain) and instrumentals (Speechless and Heavy Meadow).

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The machine is built, oiled and driven by Polar Levine who, since age two, has been exposed to every genre of music from every time and place. He hears genres as colors on a pallet -- not as categories to to be filed under or committed to.

He first made a name for himself in Boston as a composer for experimental theater and dance, advertising and TV. He was also known as a performance artist, actor and visual artist.

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Much of his music the time was abstract soundscapes constructed from mangled samples, synths, percussion, stringed instruments and noisy items found in the trash. When he moved to New York he left the art music scene and got groove. After a few years of playing percussion in samba bands at S.O.B.'s and other venues, Polar landed in hip hop which combined his interests in grooves, samples and wordplay into one form. He and rapper D.A.V. became Medicine Crew. In the aftermath of 9/11 Polar was asked to do a remix for Nile Rodgers' We Are Family Project released on a compilation by Tommy Boy Records. His experience of 9/11 which was perpetrated in his neighborhood led to a collaboration with multi-platinum Pakistan rock band Junoon resulting in their hit song No More; BBC Radio profiled Junoon leader Salmad Ahmad and Polar as part of a series on great music collaborations. In 2003 Polar founded with drummer Curtis Watts, Battery Drumline -- an all-kids samba school.

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Polar's experience as a visual artist and graphic designer has a deep influence on Polarity/1's music whose use of surreal imagery and sonic events make the music and lyrics vividly cinematic. Polarity/1's most recent CD's, SPEECHLESS and PRETTIER THAN YOU, on his subTEKst label, represent two ongoing streams: instrumentals and songs. Speechless was one of five nominees for Best Electronica CD of 2004 for indie music organization JFP. It's been remastered and ready to be rereleased. John Hollander has choreographed four tracks from Speechless for New York's Battery Dance Company's Fall Season opening in November 2006.

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Indie music site Broadjam.com had placed eight Polarity/1 songs in their Top Ten categories including Best Song All Genres, Alternative, Electronic, Experimental Electronic. Four of those have placed #1 in their respective chart.

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Currently Polarity/1 is best known for its political songs which are a regular feature of Amy Goodman's globally sindicated Democracy Now and other politics-oriented broadcasts, used in college courses on media and licensed for use in documentaries by multi-award-winning journalist/filmmaker/author Danny Schechter (WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception, and the just completed In Debt We Trust) and Pedro Carvahal (Subvertising). Polar also scored both of Schechter's films and was Music Supervisor on In Debt We Trust. His essays on music and media issues have been distributed all over the web.