About Me
Raised in the city of Baltimore, Maryland - USA ............................................................
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................Alex Gardel has been drawn to music and electronic sonic exploration as far back as he can remember. As a young child, he experimented with cassette recorders, capturing voices and acoustic sounds, then creating dubbed collages of the various recordings. At the age of six, Alex began 7 years of piano lessons. After reaching adolescence, he become bored of playing strictly classical music and began to study more contemporary styles. He was strongly influenced by bands whose music focused on synthesizers, such as Pink Floyd, Brian Eno, Rush, Frank Zappa, Herbie Hancock, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode and played in various local bands, mostly psychedelic groups and experimental projects. During that time he also studied communications & multimedia in college, where he received his first formal, albeit limited exposure to the technical aspect of studio recording.In the early 90's the rave explosion hit the east coast of the USA, with a very strong base in the Baltimore/Washington DC area. Alex was completely drawn into and obsessed with this newfound techno music. It was non-formulaic, unlike pop music being played on the radio and in clubs. Though the music heard at raves was a mixture of house, trance, techno, hardcore and ambient, at that point, there was no "genrefication". Most music was simply referred to as "techno".In 1993, Alex bought a used pair of turntables & mixer and taught himself how to DJ and after 6 months, was playing at underground parties. Though heavily influenced by the techno and house sounds of Detroit and Chicago, Alex played a mixture of house, techno, tribal, minimal electronic music and anything else he could find with an deep groove.In addition to DJing at festivals & raves (including many of the east coast's legendary Ultraworld events), Alex played various clubs and held regular residencies at Baltimore's massive "Rise" and "Remedy" weekly events in the early/mid 90's. With some fellow DJ friends, Alex ran "Pure" and "Revolve", two long-standing weekly events in Baltimore. As his DJ career had grown to a sizable scale, Alex signed on with an agency and began performing at events all over the United States.After many years of memorable experiences, Alex felt the need to proceed beyond simply playing the music of others. He wanted to push more boundaries by creating music of his own. He saved the money needed to purchase some basic studio equipment and study audio engineering at a recording institute.After graduation, Alex worked as an engineer at various recording studios. He also took a part-time job at a keyboard shop in the late 90s where he met and befriended fellow local house music DJ/musician, Ian Carey.With Alex's engineering skills & formal musical training, local progressive house DJ Brian Stillwater was eager to team up to do some collaborative work. They produced original releases and remixes for UK/European record labels. Several of the productions achieved an international level of success, getting heavy rotation by top jocks of the time and airplay on on KISS FM, London.After the turn of the century, the USA'a electronic music scene had sadly hit a lull. There were fewer events and many of the ones attempted were shut down by the police. Around that time, Alex began working with a computer technical support company. As he became more involved with the tech work, it quickly consumed his life, leaving little time for music.After almost 5 years, Alex came to the realization that the monetary benefits from his IT position did not justify the lifestyle. He knew that his true passion was in production work & DJing. In 2007, Alex made moved to Europe, dedicating all of his time & effort to the production and performance of electronic dance music.He has also reunited with his old hometown friend Ian Carey, who has now become an internationally known DJ/producer. Alex has completed many forthcoming releases and remixes for GFAB Records. The label was so impressed with one of Alex's productions that they decided to launch a new sublabel called GFAB TRAX on which to release it. GFAB TRAX focuses on more techy, tracky electronic music. With Ian's highly refined house music production skills and Alex's devoted experience with techno/tech-house production, they have begun doing collaboration work under the project name of "East Side Playerz". Their first East Side Playerz release entitled, "Cap La Nau" is now available on Beatport.Alex is continually churning out a mass of original works and remixes. So keep a keen eye & ear out for his continued catalog of diverse production work music and DJ performances!
