Post by GLRuk on Jun 25, 2010 9:37:33 GMT 1
Ok, time for a change methinx - current Deceptionist Bio is now archived...
The Deceptionist: Bio
The Deceptionist is the alter ego of former 160dB front-man Alex, created in August 2005 as an outlet for his increasingly computer-based music. The term "deceptionism" literally refers [among many other interpretations] to the process of joining together diverse tunes in interesting and unexpected ways. In July 2005 he had had his first taste of what amazing things could be done with electronic music after blagging himself and amigo Jon two tickets to Glade Electronic Dance Music Festival. Upon returning home and then to his first year of uni his eyes had been opened - he had seen the light that showed him the way, and the road was paved with electronic pulses and thronging crowds of entranced crazies - lasers and strobes, man! Fuck yeah... Rock music is being overrun by wishy-washy knob-head types anyway, so why not leave the sinking ship? But where to start...
Initially unsure of which field of the electronic spectrum to divert his attention to first he decided to go right back to basics, spending literally weeks re-learning the mechanics of sound and constantly learning more and more about sound synthesis. One invaluable source of information was Sound on Sound Magazine's "Synth Secrets" series, which takes a fairly detailed look at a wide range of topics. Give it a look-see if you're interested in making sounds, as it is very informative.
The results of this first quest for knowledge are a bizarre assembly of electronica, influenced quite heavily by Aphex Twin, Infected Mushroom and a fair quantity of inebriating substances. At this point the tracks were put together using Kristal, Jazz midi sequencer, Synth Edit and Cool Edit '96 [still!]. One such unfinished [most of the material from this time is unfinished] track called simply "Insane" features Beavis and Butthead and was basically a collection of samples over different drumbeats. One month later this would evolve and combine with "Step to E" to become "Brain Damage". The one track that was finished was his 'MIDI graduation track'; following the handful of what were nothing much more than vague experiments he decided to resequence the Mortal Kombat theme - using what he had recently learnt as a basis. It worked, awesome - what next?
In November 2005 he was approached by an acquaintance with regards to doing a set with him at the campus SU bar. "Well yeah sure, awesome - except I don't know how to DJ??" Enter Virtual DJ. Having had a very brief fiddle with a programme called Traktor he had noted the possibility of mixing tracks live but had no idea how to DJ or indeed where to start? The guy who had offered the gig had a fairly spellbounding array of mixers and consoles - the main one of which was a Hercules controller connected to his computer and to Virtual DJ. "So how does it work?" The guy puts on a house track and lets it play for a few seconds. "Okay, you hear that? Thats track A.." he pulls a few faders and twiddles some knobs as it reaches the end of the section and brings up another song, overlaying it on top of the first. "And thats Track B. You just line them up and make sure they're the same speed then fade them." Astounding! But, it seems, utterly impossible: Alex tries and fails miserably as he fumbles over the controller having no real idea of what to do. He leaves the guy's flat that night determined to conquer Virtual DJ and the whole DJing thing as a whole...
So, if Chapter One was called 'Ba Hons from University of MIDI' then this one would surely be called 'University of Virtual DJ.. post-graduates degree'. He soon found that almost all of the controls of Virtual DJ could be mapped to the PC keyboard - completely customisable - and so he set about mapping, aiming to construct a layout as true to regular DJing as possible, aware that it is all too easy to let the computer do all the work. The second thing he became aware of was that a MIDI controller was becoming more alluring by the day, and would make a difference in a number of different programmes he used. Well, Xmas wasn't far so maybe send a little note to Santa perhaps...
Besides learning the language of mixing he continued to put together tracks now under an umbrella project name of The Deceptionist's Adventure into Sound and Music - partially influenced by mixtapes like DJ Yoda's and Osymyso's Welcome to the Palindrome it was to be a ninety-minute journey - possibly to be accompanied by images - through sound via the media from now and then that everyone knows and loves, or loathes - the main theme being eclecticism; a mongrel mix of TV, radio, film, music - anything. This was the founding basis for what has now become just eclectic sets, but the original project was slightly more refined as an album rather than as a set of mixed songs. A few tracks, including "Brain Damage", an Ecstasy health warning a la Human Traffic, and a DnB reworking of Mario-Land were started, but inevitably mixing was to consume the majority of his time.
Come Xmas and he did indeed get the present he was hoping for, which drove him further into the fray, spreading the controls now over the keyboard and the controller and trying to find a way of incorporating the synth knowledge he had gleaned via Synth Edit and the Vst FX on Virtual DJ. Into the first few months of 2006 he acquired a very battered old pair of Numark 1550 belt-driven turntables with a broken DM950 mixer. He finally had something real and physical with which to spin records... except of course that they were crap and the mixer didn't work, so as a compromise he set up one turntable with the mixer and determined to learn how to scratch - with Disney's Jungle Book and Noel Edmonds 'Funny Phone Calls'.
By the summer of 2006, after moving into a flat near the centre of Newport he had successfully mixed a few dodgy sets using his Virtual DJ setup and was competent enough to mix some hip-hop, most dance and of course an artillery of DnB, so come the time for a house party in July his skills were called upon. The Deceptionist's debut gig, from what he can remember, went well.. for a debut gig especially. Some of the set was planned, later - after a few more drinks and after he'd exhausted his initial playlist - there were some fairly well mixed ad-libbed moments although there were naturally bucketfulls of glaring errors.
In September 2006 he switched courses from Film and Video to Animation and so the strange new workload meant a decrease in productivity, but despite a brief creative spurt - and another party set impending - he lost his entire digital music collection when his computer went Kaput. Luckily some material was saved, including Internal Battle of Blood Without Honour - Kill Bill vs Immortal Technique and Talkin' the Shit Down Blues - Bob Dylan vs Cypress Hill. Following an incredibly long 24 hours of doom-stricken panic he finally calmed down and rationalised that even though his computer was dead he could install the software on someone else's and use their collection of music as opposed to his. Okay, you have three days - go... And go he did, amazingly the set for the UWN Ski and Snow social hosted downstairs by his flatmate was nowhere near as bad as it could have been, and one drunken bastard was kind enough to tell him it was 'really really really good'. Bless.
Following the realisation that George Harrison had been dead for precisely five years and that he had long neglected the music of 'the good old days' his need to replenish his lost music collection meant that it wasn't long before 60's psychedelia took a hold on him once more. Following the comments of Deceptionist Old-boy Jon he picked up his guitar for the first time in far too long and in November he began to grow a moustache - one surefire way to tell that someone is turning into a hippie. By December he was submersed in all manner of psychedelic/blues/folksy music. Bands he hadn't listened to in years previously he decided to now chance and hell - they were damn good. Grateful Dead, The Band, Mamas and Papas, The Beach Boys, and in particular a song dubbed "the ultimate Beatle out-fake" The Candle Burns. Aware that no one really knew who recorded this song and that no copyright was held on it he recorded his own interpretation, and uni-sped the original to perhaps unlock one door of the song's mystery. Thus The Candle Burns [phoenix edition] was born and The Deceptionist was returned to his mighty axe. Mixing could wait, he felt guilty for almost abandoning his first love and so compensated by continuing his journey back into the 60's..
Realising that perhaps there was money to be made in recording and hawking off copies of his music he planned to create a website from which he could release his own material and perhaps even other people's if they'd let him... and so GLR UK was revived from the days of 160dB and 12 Bearded Germans and in January 2007 The Candle Burns became it's first release in almost two years. Between January and March the GLR site was developed from it's basic one-page form and the word was put about - so it was a great surprise to him deep within his 60's shell when a friend asked him if he'd DJ a party at their flat near the end of the month. Shit! That'd be awesome of course, except he hasn't even thought about mixing in months... "So this is the current fantasy - fix together a set for Ross - maximum 2.5 hours - encompassing as much as I can - that way everyone at the party is kept happy - a little bit of Roots Manuva, some Jimi Hendrix, Eek A Mouse anyone? And all in two weeks.." what a fantasy - but it came true. It wasn't exactly 2.5 hours, more like 1.75 but it sounded good, went down fairly well and following that - it's a bit of a blur... but the main point is that everybody had fun.
And so that brings us up to the current date.. sort of - since then The Deceptionist has been busy trying to kickstart GLR into existence but still he ploughs on behind the scenes... fiddling with knobs and tapping at keys. What next for The Deceptionist? Who knows? Certainly not him.
Update:
Since starting GLR The Deceptionist has lay low, at least in musical terms. Since the release of The Candle Burns at the end of 2006 we have heard nothing but a few snatches of demo tracks from his upcoming (and long-awaited) debut LP Ukiyo - Zen, which has been in production since August 2008.
Besides writing and recording his own material The Deceptionist is also currently playing guitar with Bristol band The Butch Birds.
The Deceptionist: Bio
The Deceptionist is the alter ego of former 160dB front-man Alex, created in August 2005 as an outlet for his increasingly computer-based music. The term "deceptionism" literally refers [among many other interpretations] to the process of joining together diverse tunes in interesting and unexpected ways. In July 2005 he had had his first taste of what amazing things could be done with electronic music after blagging himself and amigo Jon two tickets to Glade Electronic Dance Music Festival. Upon returning home and then to his first year of uni his eyes had been opened - he had seen the light that showed him the way, and the road was paved with electronic pulses and thronging crowds of entranced crazies - lasers and strobes, man! Fuck yeah... Rock music is being overrun by wishy-washy knob-head types anyway, so why not leave the sinking ship? But where to start...
Initially unsure of which field of the electronic spectrum to divert his attention to first he decided to go right back to basics, spending literally weeks re-learning the mechanics of sound and constantly learning more and more about sound synthesis. One invaluable source of information was Sound on Sound Magazine's "Synth Secrets" series, which takes a fairly detailed look at a wide range of topics. Give it a look-see if you're interested in making sounds, as it is very informative.
The results of this first quest for knowledge are a bizarre assembly of electronica, influenced quite heavily by Aphex Twin, Infected Mushroom and a fair quantity of inebriating substances. At this point the tracks were put together using Kristal, Jazz midi sequencer, Synth Edit and Cool Edit '96 [still!]. One such unfinished [most of the material from this time is unfinished] track called simply "Insane" features Beavis and Butthead and was basically a collection of samples over different drumbeats. One month later this would evolve and combine with "Step to E" to become "Brain Damage". The one track that was finished was his 'MIDI graduation track'; following the handful of what were nothing much more than vague experiments he decided to resequence the Mortal Kombat theme - using what he had recently learnt as a basis. It worked, awesome - what next?
In November 2005 he was approached by an acquaintance with regards to doing a set with him at the campus SU bar. "Well yeah sure, awesome - except I don't know how to DJ??" Enter Virtual DJ. Having had a very brief fiddle with a programme called Traktor he had noted the possibility of mixing tracks live but had no idea how to DJ or indeed where to start? The guy who had offered the gig had a fairly spellbounding array of mixers and consoles - the main one of which was a Hercules controller connected to his computer and to Virtual DJ. "So how does it work?" The guy puts on a house track and lets it play for a few seconds. "Okay, you hear that? Thats track A.." he pulls a few faders and twiddles some knobs as it reaches the end of the section and brings up another song, overlaying it on top of the first. "And thats Track B. You just line them up and make sure they're the same speed then fade them." Astounding! But, it seems, utterly impossible: Alex tries and fails miserably as he fumbles over the controller having no real idea of what to do. He leaves the guy's flat that night determined to conquer Virtual DJ and the whole DJing thing as a whole...
So, if Chapter One was called 'Ba Hons from University of MIDI' then this one would surely be called 'University of Virtual DJ.. post-graduates degree'. He soon found that almost all of the controls of Virtual DJ could be mapped to the PC keyboard - completely customisable - and so he set about mapping, aiming to construct a layout as true to regular DJing as possible, aware that it is all too easy to let the computer do all the work. The second thing he became aware of was that a MIDI controller was becoming more alluring by the day, and would make a difference in a number of different programmes he used. Well, Xmas wasn't far so maybe send a little note to Santa perhaps...
Besides learning the language of mixing he continued to put together tracks now under an umbrella project name of The Deceptionist's Adventure into Sound and Music - partially influenced by mixtapes like DJ Yoda's and Osymyso's Welcome to the Palindrome it was to be a ninety-minute journey - possibly to be accompanied by images - through sound via the media from now and then that everyone knows and loves, or loathes - the main theme being eclecticism; a mongrel mix of TV, radio, film, music - anything. This was the founding basis for what has now become just eclectic sets, but the original project was slightly more refined as an album rather than as a set of mixed songs. A few tracks, including "Brain Damage", an Ecstasy health warning a la Human Traffic, and a DnB reworking of Mario-Land were started, but inevitably mixing was to consume the majority of his time.
Come Xmas and he did indeed get the present he was hoping for, which drove him further into the fray, spreading the controls now over the keyboard and the controller and trying to find a way of incorporating the synth knowledge he had gleaned via Synth Edit and the Vst FX on Virtual DJ. Into the first few months of 2006 he acquired a very battered old pair of Numark 1550 belt-driven turntables with a broken DM950 mixer. He finally had something real and physical with which to spin records... except of course that they were crap and the mixer didn't work, so as a compromise he set up one turntable with the mixer and determined to learn how to scratch - with Disney's Jungle Book and Noel Edmonds 'Funny Phone Calls'.
By the summer of 2006, after moving into a flat near the centre of Newport he had successfully mixed a few dodgy sets using his Virtual DJ setup and was competent enough to mix some hip-hop, most dance and of course an artillery of DnB, so come the time for a house party in July his skills were called upon. The Deceptionist's debut gig, from what he can remember, went well.. for a debut gig especially. Some of the set was planned, later - after a few more drinks and after he'd exhausted his initial playlist - there were some fairly well mixed ad-libbed moments although there were naturally bucketfulls of glaring errors.
In September 2006 he switched courses from Film and Video to Animation and so the strange new workload meant a decrease in productivity, but despite a brief creative spurt - and another party set impending - he lost his entire digital music collection when his computer went Kaput. Luckily some material was saved, including Internal Battle of Blood Without Honour - Kill Bill vs Immortal Technique and Talkin' the Shit Down Blues - Bob Dylan vs Cypress Hill. Following an incredibly long 24 hours of doom-stricken panic he finally calmed down and rationalised that even though his computer was dead he could install the software on someone else's and use their collection of music as opposed to his. Okay, you have three days - go... And go he did, amazingly the set for the UWN Ski and Snow social hosted downstairs by his flatmate was nowhere near as bad as it could have been, and one drunken bastard was kind enough to tell him it was 'really really really good'. Bless.
Following the realisation that George Harrison had been dead for precisely five years and that he had long neglected the music of 'the good old days' his need to replenish his lost music collection meant that it wasn't long before 60's psychedelia took a hold on him once more. Following the comments of Deceptionist Old-boy Jon he picked up his guitar for the first time in far too long and in November he began to grow a moustache - one surefire way to tell that someone is turning into a hippie. By December he was submersed in all manner of psychedelic/blues/folksy music. Bands he hadn't listened to in years previously he decided to now chance and hell - they were damn good. Grateful Dead, The Band, Mamas and Papas, The Beach Boys, and in particular a song dubbed "the ultimate Beatle out-fake" The Candle Burns. Aware that no one really knew who recorded this song and that no copyright was held on it he recorded his own interpretation, and uni-sped the original to perhaps unlock one door of the song's mystery. Thus The Candle Burns [phoenix edition] was born and The Deceptionist was returned to his mighty axe. Mixing could wait, he felt guilty for almost abandoning his first love and so compensated by continuing his journey back into the 60's..
Realising that perhaps there was money to be made in recording and hawking off copies of his music he planned to create a website from which he could release his own material and perhaps even other people's if they'd let him... and so GLR UK was revived from the days of 160dB and 12 Bearded Germans and in January 2007 The Candle Burns became it's first release in almost two years. Between January and March the GLR site was developed from it's basic one-page form and the word was put about - so it was a great surprise to him deep within his 60's shell when a friend asked him if he'd DJ a party at their flat near the end of the month. Shit! That'd be awesome of course, except he hasn't even thought about mixing in months... "So this is the current fantasy - fix together a set for Ross - maximum 2.5 hours - encompassing as much as I can - that way everyone at the party is kept happy - a little bit of Roots Manuva, some Jimi Hendrix, Eek A Mouse anyone? And all in two weeks.." what a fantasy - but it came true. It wasn't exactly 2.5 hours, more like 1.75 but it sounded good, went down fairly well and following that - it's a bit of a blur... but the main point is that everybody had fun.
And so that brings us up to the current date.. sort of - since then The Deceptionist has been busy trying to kickstart GLR into existence but still he ploughs on behind the scenes... fiddling with knobs and tapping at keys. What next for The Deceptionist? Who knows? Certainly not him.
Update:
Since starting GLR The Deceptionist has lay low, at least in musical terms. Since the release of The Candle Burns at the end of 2006 we have heard nothing but a few snatches of demo tracks from his upcoming (and long-awaited) debut LP Ukiyo - Zen, which has been in production since August 2008.
Besides writing and recording his own material The Deceptionist is also currently playing guitar with Bristol band The Butch Birds.