Showing 1 - 18 of 18
Artist: M.S.B.R.
M.S.B.R. (Molten Salt Breeder Reactor) is the moniker of 1990s Tokyo noise artist Koji Tano. Many of M.S.B.R.'s recordings are self-released cassettes, with an exception being his duo with Kengo Iuchi entitled One, released by Canada's Alien8 Recordings. M.S.B.R. has toured Asia, Australia, North America, and Europe and has collaborated with... [+] Read More
Artist: Masonna
Extreme noise artist Masonna (Maso Yamazaki) has been active at the forefront of Japanese underground since 1987. Mixing noise and vocals, Masonna had released over ten recordings by the late '90s, including Super Compact Disc and Ejaculation Generator on Japanese label Alchemy and Frequency LSD on Canada's Alien8 Recordings. He also recorded... [+] Read More
Artist: Tanakh
The brainchild of Jesse Poe, who has worked as a producer and engineer for various groups, Tanakh were formed in Richmond, VA, in 2000. Much in the working mode as Spiritualized, Poe led the group by combining songwriting structures and improvisational music for an intriguing result. The group's first album, Villa Claustrophobia, was released in... [+] Read More
Artist: Knurl
One of the leading Canadian noise artists, Knurl has performed at experimental music festivals and with such acclaimed experimental musicians as Keiji Haino, M.S.B.R., and Thurston Moore, with releases on the Alien8 Recordings label. Knurl is the alias for Alan Bloor, born in Windsor, Ontario, and trained for nearly a decade in classical and... [+] Read More
Artist: Tomas Jirku
Using only beats and rhythms to create textures, Tomas Jirku uses few materials to create his minimalist approach to techno. Though his background is in industrial music first, he turned to electronic after being introduced to its early British days. Though he resides in Canada, Jirku is originally from the Czech republic and has absolutely no... [+] Read More
Artist: The Unicorns
Yet another promising Canadian indie rock band, Montreal-via-British Columbia's Unicorns began in the late '90s, when high-school friends Nick (Neil) Diamonds and Alden Ginger began crafting their roundabout, lo-fi, but distinctly catchy music. Cheap keyboards, loud guitars, and real and mechanical drums surround the duo's skewed and often... [+] Read More
Artist: David Kristian
Based in Montreal, David Kristian has looked far back into electronic music's past to unite his vision of soundtrack music and experimental electronics. Inspired by the first completely electronic film score, 1956's Forbidden Planet by Louis and Bebe Barron, Kristian recorded a 1997 album (Cricklewood) as a tribute to the radical sound... [+] Read More
Artist: Lowfish
Toronto-based producer Gregory DeRocher records energetic lo-fi experimental electro as Lowfish. Released mostly on his and partner Jason "Solvent" Amm's own Suction label, DeRocher's music combines the stripped-down approach of early new wave and industrial acts such as Human League and Skinny Puppy with the melodic edginess of Selected Ambient... [+] Read More
Artist: Polmo Polpo
More visionary than your common ambient techno producer, Sandro Perri synthesizes real instruments with dark ambience and comlements the resulting music with suitable rhetoric and visual art on his sensory rich productions as Polmo Polpo. The Toronto producer and one-time jazz student debuted as Polmo Polpo in 1999 on a split 12" alongside Cog.... [+] Read More
Artist: Soft Canyon
Soft Canyon create hazy psychedelic rock with big choruses and trippy textures that draws from the Laurel Canyon scene, Love, pop-absurdist Van Dyke Parks, Neil Young, the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother. It's a towering set of influences, but Soft Canyon never fall into the trap of mimicry, instead crafting timeless,... [+] Read More
Artist: Alexandre St-Onge
Alexandre St-Onge is an ambiguous artist from Montreal. He started playing free jazz on double bass and quickly developed into a sound/performance artist. He belongs to the generation of experimentalists and improvisers that came after the Ambiances Magnétiques collective, and was actually instrumental in establishing some contacts between that... [+] Read More
Artist: Tim Hecker
Montreal producer Tim Hecker made his initial breakthrough as Jetone, his techno moniker, but followed with some incredible ambient work attributed to his born name. This experimental ambient work, released by Alien8 sublabel Substractif beginning in late 2001 with Haunt Me Haunt Me, Do It Again, won much acclaim. It also familiarized listeners... [+] Read More
Artist: Phoenecia
Unlikely heirs to the legacy of Miami hip-hop represented by Maggotron, 2 Live Crew, Tony Butler, and MC A.D.E., beat decomposers Phoenecia combine bass music's boom with the glitchy, angular, digitally processed post-electro of Autechre, RAC, and other artists associated with the British Warp label. Originally releasing music as Soul Oddity,... [+] Read More
Artist: Kazumoto Endo
Since the mid-'90s, Japanese noise artist Kazumoto Endo has released albums and EPs under his own name and the alias Killer Bug on noise labels in several countries. Growing up in the '80s, Endo listened to British bands like the Cure and the Smiths, then got turned on to groups such as Pussy Galore and Big Black, and began attending live... [+] Read More
Artist: Jetone
With the rise of laptop techno in the early 2000s came Jetone, one of the genre's more celebrated artists. By incorporating subtle glitch effects into ambient techno soundscapes, his style of techno had enough digital aesthetic to differentiate it from standard analog techno. Yet, on the other hand, relative to the noisier fare of artists such... [+] Read More
Artist: Francisco López
Francisco Lopez is one of the leading artists in electro-acoustic music in the 1990s. From a background in biology and ecology, he has created a singular and focused musical style centered around immersive sonic environments which are intended to strengthen and enhance the user's listening capabilities. His live performances are often performed... [+] Read More
Artist: Klaxon Gueule
Klaxon Gueule: “horn scream." With a name like that, you would expect something noisy, even hardcore, but instead what you get is a free improv trio with strong leanings toward electroacoustic textures. Ambiances Magnétiques drummer Michel F. Côté's main musical vehicle since the late ‘90s, Klaxon Gueule took part in the avant-garde... [+] Read More
Artist: Merzbow
There is no need to argue: Merzbow stands as the most important artist in noise music. The favorite moniker of Japanese Masami Akita appears on hundreds of albums. The name comes from German artist Kurt Schwitters' famous work "Merzbau," which he also called "The Cathedral of Erotic Misery." Akita's choice reflects his fondness for junk art... [+] Read More
Artist: Virtual Alien
Nick Peterson came up with the concept for his dark electronic one-man band Virtual Alien at the tender age of 14. Born in 1973, he unleashed his dark debut, War of Love, in 1988 but was hit by a cab in London a year later, went into a coma, and wasn't able to leave the hospital for four months. He returned to recording in 1990 and released King... [+] Read More
Artist: Rainbow
The brainchild of former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, Rainbow quickly developed into one of the '70s most successful heavy metal bands behind charismatic front man Ronnie James Dio. Together, the duo would produce a string of acclaimed albums which are still considered classics of the genre. But the group would change their musical... [+] Read More
Artist: Nirvana
Prior to Nirvana, alternative music was consigned to specialty sections of record stores and major labels considered it to be, at the very most, a tax write-off. After the band's second album, 1991's Nevermind, nothing was ever quite the same, for better and for worse. Nirvana popularized punk, post-punk, and indie rock, unintentionally bringing... [+] Read More
Artist: Octave One
One of the more anachronistic teams in the Detroit techno underground, Octave One's rough-and-tumble production values gel with most Motor City crews but for Lawrence Burden and his two brothers, the focus is completely on music with little political or social aesthetics behind their tracks. Burden originally began DJing in 1987 in a collective... [+] Read More
Artist: Brian Egan
Brian Egan is an English major at the University of Michigan, where he is a Daily Arts Writer for The Michigan Daily, the student newspaper at U of M, and has reviewed artists from Ringo Starr to Built to Spill. He is classically trained in piano and plays many other instruments, including organ, mandolin, and trombone. Born and raised in the... [+] Read More
Artist: Dan Bell
Dan Bell has been a top minimalist Detroit producer from his beginnings as a critical member of Richie Hawtin's Plus 8 Records to his recording of an all-time classic, 1994's "Losing Control" (as DBX) to the foundation of his own Seventh City and Accelerate labels. Born in Sacramento, he grew up near Detroit and was influenced by the sound of... [+] Read More
Artist: Bumps Blackwell
Robert "Bumps" Blackwell produced some of the first hits by Little Richard and Sam Cooke ("You Send Me") which paved the way for rock & roll and soul. Born in 1918 in Seattle, WA, he played piano in a band that included pre-stardom members Quincy Jones and Ray Charles. After a hitch in the Army, Blackwell came back to Seattle in 1949. After... [+] Read More
