Bio
I currently live in Sheffield where I'm studying for an MA in Sonic Art. I have been composing and recording since I was a kid, making collages of guitar with my Amiga 500 and sampler and carrying out primitive overdubbing experiments by linking 2 tape decks together. This became serious around 1999, when I got a 4-track recorder and started to produce cassettes of music in a post-rock vein (under the influence of Mogwai and David Pajo's M projects). This progressed to an interest in experimental composition around 2001 when I was blown away by Brian Eno and his ambient experiments (particularly Discreet Music and Music for Airports). Picking up on his influences led me to a whole world of experimental music, including Cage, Feldman, Reich, Young and others which shifted my musical interests away from traditional rock instrumentation and towards creating gradually changing soundscapes made with sound materials mostly assembled and manipulated in the studio.
Whilst my earlier pieces almost exclusively went for straight forward instrumental sources such as guitars, trumpet and other acoustic instruments but I increasingly find myself turning to other sources such as field recordings and electronics. I don't associate myself with electronica, despite using a computer for the majority of my work. I see my relationship to electronics in the tradition of what Thom Holmes has called "Soldering Composers", building my own equipment such as oscillators and effects devices that hark back to an era when composers such as David Tudor got their hands dirty with wires and circuits (or recently, computer code). I have also made several 'circuit bent' instruments, where battery powered toys are deliberately short circuited to create a variety of noises.
I often begin with some kind of framework, deriving tones by chance, exploring a certain tuning or a chord progression for example. In this respect I see my work as composed rather than improvised. In reality, my method is somewhere between the two with a lot of ear led improvisation with equipment and the way sounds are recorded and treated. I have used experimental to describe my music after Cage's definition – that is, composing music where the outcome is not necessarily foreseen.
I have released a series of CDr albums through my own Quiet Records and other labels. Individual pieces have been included on various compilations (Munkyfest samplers, Brighton's ‘Slightly Off Kilter' zine, The Adventures compilation from GHOSTS and Octoberman's ‘Senstive to Light'). I have enjoyed collaborations with other artists, supplying the music for a film 'Return to 92' shown at the Germs 2003 festival, dancer Airelise has used my piece 'low pulses' for her piece Third Life. I occasionally make it outside he confines of the studio and have performed several sets of improvisation with guitar and various and temperamental bits of electronic equipment. I have also begun to explore installation work, putting together a work called ‘Playing the Weather' at BLOC gallery in Sheffield.There are some press quotes here, more information on releases on the music page, and information on these bands/labels on the links Page.