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Stewart Walker, Unit, and Jake Mandell November '99 North American tour update
Stewart Walker (Force Inc/Mille Plateaux/Tresor/Tektite), Unit (Caipirinha), and Jake Mandell (Worm Interface/Lucky Kitchen) will be doing a North American tour in November. Scroll down for tour dates and artist bios. Cognition (techno.ca/cognition) and
Andrew Duke's In The Mix are sponsoring this tour.
Stewart Walker/Unit/Jake Mandell (all live PAs) Wed Nov 3: Invisible Cities @ Brownies, New York NY
note: Stewart Walker and Unit will be appearing
at all dates;
if you are a promoter and
would like to book a date on this tour,
Stewart Walker bio (from Tresor) Stewart Walker grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. About 800 miles from Detroit or Chicago in geography but even more distant in ideology. In the early 90's, Walker looked past the jangly guitars and derivative melodies of popular American music and settled his gaze on english pop musicians experimenting with electronic effects and rhythms. It was through this distant gate that he entered into the emerging world of modern electronic music. His interests of that time included the sound of "baggy" Manchester groups like Happy Mondays and Stone Roses, but over time he switched to the more electronic sounds of 808 State, and LFO. After finishing high school in 1992, he went to England to find and listen to the more underground records available only to the European market. He also attended his first "raves" which he had previously only read about. Upon his return to the US he sold his guitar and bought an analog synthesizer. Finances dictated that he could either buy music equipment or a pair of turntables, but the magic for him was more in the creation of sounds than in collecting and mixing other people's records. So after two years of college, part time jobs, learning and saving, he finally had the "Walker beginner's" studio. Because of the limitations of such a small studio he was able to concentrate on creating interesting sounds. He had no MIDI devices and so each composition tested a new method of interfacing the different machines. These were the experimental years, when the basis of his direction and musical identity was formed. This knowledge was gained by trial and error and without any external mentors. There were no electronic musicians around him until he moved to Wisconsin in 1995. It was there were he decided to take up the musical path in earnest. After a year of filling in the shortcomings of his equipment he started spending every day in the studio, putting the experience he had gained over the past 3 years into a more structured musical form. His debut releases came out of Michigan in late 1997 and were drastically different. The first release, "Amphetamine Sulphate" on Matrix experimented with tight and minimal bass and percussion programming reminiscent of the work done by Dan Bell. The second release, "Horizontal Transfer" on Deepfried was much less obvious about influences. The music on the record was much more texture based. Instead of utilizing straight jacking rhythms, patterns flowed in and out of the center. The benefit of this approach was increased musical depth and the ability to listen to the music in a home environment as well as in a club.This apparent dichotomy set the path that he has followed for many of his later releases. check out Stewart Walker's website for a discography and more info. Unit bio (from Caipirinha) Mr. S. Pants (aka unit) can write an album in his sleep - literally. Practically writing music in a slumber due to an unending battle with fatigue, unit has managed to put his semi-conscious visions to sound. Thanks to the full-time care provided by the finest doctors no money can buy and his vast array of electronic gadgets, out of the bedpan comes this chef d'oeuvre... unit's first full-length album: THE NARCOLEPTIC SYMPHONY. Starting with what resembles the fast forwarding of some interstellar answering machine, then taking you to a captivating landscape where lush future classical orchestration, fragments of unidentifiable conversation and a veritable orgy of other sounds all couple with unit's fiercely bastardized version of a breakbeat to create a sound not quite like anything you've heard. Perhaps a soundtrack to a not so distant future, unit's NARCOLEPTIC SYMPHONY is a taste of something new and old, soft and heavy, beautiful and distorted...so sit back and savor the sound you cant quite put your tongue on. You might find it tastes pretty sweet. more info on Unit can be found on the Caipirinha site. Jake Mandell bio (from Worm Interface) Jake Mandell has been obsessively sculpting some of the most mentally stimulating, physically satisfying sound and rhythm creations in the world since he was 13 years old. His first full-length, Parallel Processes, released last winter on the esteemed UK label Worm Interface, has won him unprecedented global praise for its haunting melodies, uniquely prodigious programming and body-twitching cleverness. Raved about in dozens of international magazines, City Pages (Minneapolis) hailed Parallel Processes as "The Best Album of the Past 12 Months," and compared Jake's sonic explorations to Schonberg's. Wax (UK) exclaimed quite simply, "this is future music," and slapped Parallel Processes with its prestigious "Album of the Month" crown. Although raised on an ample diet of classical piano and free-jazz improvisation, Jake studied both Biochemistry and Japanese history in school. After receiving a grant to study enzyme structure, Jake was inspired by the advanced computer modeling of proteins and the interconnectedness of biological systems. Using a network of three computers, a combination of software he wrote himself and commercial software, Jake's music draws at will from electro, drum and bass, and techno - but creates a sounscape many levels deeper. The tracks will taunt you with hints of danceability, only to guide you down a dark cavern of advanced programming and dsp. Currently residing in Minneapolis, Jake is writing music and sound-software full-time. In addition to a series of 12 full-length ambient CDs that are well underway, Jake has completed his second album for Worm Interface - expect to see it in the early fall on vinyl and CD. If you have caught Jake's live set yet, it will literally change your perceptions of real-time sonic manipulation. Using only his laptop and custom-written software environment, Jake wrenches beats, sounds, and melodies into contorted fragements that will command not only the atmosphere, but your head and body as well. Jake played around the globe with headlining acts at the Knitting Factory in New York, Miami, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Puerto Rico. Make contact with Jake Mandell on his site here. Back to the News index |
