Random Notes
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Random Notes
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Melbourne's Doc Benway is a mysterious figure in the drum and bass underworld. He openly confesses to being a force of pure malevolence. This may be a result of childhood trauma -- after being abandoned as a baby, he was discovered and raised by a hive of European wasps -- or it may be due to his contraction of a rare rapid aging condition that gives him the appearance of a man well beyond his 47 years. The Doc divides his time between making trips to the medicine cabinet and writing gritty reality-based drum and bass.
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Stephen Mercer lives in England and creates solo electronic music under the name hipnotic. He recently launched an ambitious Web-based project called DnBscene, which is "dedicated to showcasing the very best unsigned drum and bass from the Internet's underground music scene". He does not consider himself a drum and bass producer. "The link between hipnotic tracks is not that of being in a single genre, but a more abstract consistency of aims: the exploration of harmony and texture through the repetition of interlocking musical parts, building whole tracks from a single simple idea."
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Nick Tew has come a long way since he had his first drum and bass tune, 'Betrayed', posted on the up and coming producers page on Drum&Bass Arena
(www.breakbeat.co.uk). DJs in the US, Germany, Australia and the UK play dubplates of his tracks, and Phonix has recently signed to new label Argon Records.
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Daniel Potts has been producing drum and bass under the name Spinwarp for two years. He also runs Spinwarp.com -- a site dedicated to drum and bass news and production techniques. "When I established the site in 1997, I wanted to contribute something more than just a site that was about me. So I started building a library of production techniques and other info related to drum and bass production, computer-based music, and the drum and bass scenes in Australia," he said.
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Static (Aaron Danks) is not only a prolific drum and bass artist, but he also reviews MP3s for UK drum and bass Bible Knowledge and runs MP3.com radio station Drum and Bass (mp3.com/stations/dnb). He has two vinyl releases coming out on Argon Records in the next couple of months and other labels are pursuing him to release tracks.
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Mike
Cameron (Vtek) is well known to drum and bass fans in Sydney, where he has
been DJing for about three years. He has played alongside major
international acts including Grooverider and Bad Company. Despite his
DJing success, production remains his first priority. Mike has been
writing tracks for many years and producing drum and bass since 1996.
Together with Subsonic and Bloody Fist's Mark N, he recently started a
record label called Magnetic.
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This month's clip,
'Spyro' from Vicious Hairy Mary, features a fascinating performance by puppets reanimated from the vaults of the Mu-Meson Archives.
'Spyro' is from the band's debut album, Orchestra Phantasma, released on Magnus Music. The puppets add another dimension to the circus atmosphere of Vicious Hairy Mary's music.
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