Source Direct were a jungle / drum & bass production outfit from St. Albans in the United Kingdom, consisting of Phil Aslett and Jim Baker. Their music would best be described as a combination of intensely complex, compressed drum edits, often suffused with a synthesis of menacing soundscapes and jazz-funk samples. They were largely considered to possess a similar production sensibility to Photek, but with a more hostile edge.
First formed back in the 1990s, UK based artist "Macrocosm" (Mike Letchford) started life producing ambient music, but moved into experimental "intelligent" dance music and a period of drum and bass. Featured as "demo of the month" in April 1996 edition of Future Music magazine (with the song "Choral Reefer", he joined the label Protean Vision Quest in 1997 (along with artists like Gnomadic) supplying music for the "Ancient Alien" video, and regularly performing in Brighton and as part of a UK "Ambisonix 3D Sound" tour (along with the band Quanta).
Oxia should be no stranger to techno fans. Behind his fancy pseudonym we find one Olivier Raymond from Grenoble, France. Deejaying from the tender age of 15, Oxia has been consistently churning out productions under several guises - with Stephane Deschezeaux or the Hacker with whom he runs the Goodlife label.
Mayer Hawthorne grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, just outside of Detroit, and vividly remembers, as a child, driving with his father and tuning the car radio in to the rich soul and jazz history the region provided. “Most of the best music ever made came out of Detroit,” claims the singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, who counts Isaac Hayes, Leroy Hutson, Mike Terry, and Barry White among his influences, but draws the most inspiration from the music of Smokey Robinson, Curtis Mayfield and the legendary songwriting and production trio of Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland and Eddie Holland Jr.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is a rock band formed in 1976 from Gainesville, Florida, USA and led by Tom Petty. Petty has been supported by his band, The Heartbreakers, for the majority of his career. He has occasionally released solo work, as was the case with his 2006 album Highway Companion on which he performed most of the backing instrumentation himself. However, members of The Heartbreakers have played on each of his solo albums and the band has always backed him when touring in support of those albums.
Smooth jazz inspired vocals to Drum & Bass style grooves, Downbeat, and even soulful electro. Although the word "lounge" has been associated with a certain genre of music, the trio of musicians Marco Drewes, Niels Hesse, and singer Darrin Huss have taken it on as their moniker to redefine it's meaning and present the listener with an audio style and attitude all their own. www.myspace.com/loungeinternational
You Can't Win, Charlie Brown is a Portuguese band led by Afonso Cabral and Salvador Menezes. The group formed in late 2009 and with the help of Luís Costa and David Santos released their self-titled debut EP through Optimus Discos in February of 2010. The EP features 6 home recorded songs that combine a Portuguese sense of melancholy with the British/American musical aesthetic of such artists as Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, Nick Drake or Sufjan Stevens.
King's X is an American hard rock / heavy metal band noted for its spiritual lyrics and sophisticated musical styles which include, but are not limited to, blues, progressive rock, grunge and psychedelic. The group traces its beginnings to 1980, when Doug Pinnick and Jerry Gaskill, who had previously met while recording and touring with Phil Keaggy and touring with the band Petra, recruited Ty Tabor to join them.
Slint was a math rock band consisting of Brian McMahan (guitar and vocals), David Pajo (guitar), Britt Walford (drums), Todd Brashear (bass on Spiderland) and Ethan Buckler (bass on Tweez). They formed in Louisville, Kentucky, United States in 1986. Though they disbanded circa 1991, they are considered to be a major influence on the post-hardcore, math rock, and post-rock scenes. Slint's first album Tweez was recorded by legendary engineer Steve Albini in 1987 and released in obscurity on the Jennifer Hartman Records label in 1989.