The FMs debut EP Fabulous Morning Swim blends shoegaze IDM, dub techno and atmospheric foley into a listener's playground pulsing with warm swells of feedback guitar, evolving synths and live sound recordings over deep bass and blissed-out rhythms. Fabulous Morning Swim reverberates with waves of evolving color, cinematic sound design and The FMs' meticulous programming.
The FMs are Steve Nalepa and Justin Rickles, Chicago-born, LA-based music and multimedia event producers. The two originally joined forces to produce Locale Tuesdays at Star Shoes, a weekly audiovisual showcase in Hollywood. Soon they began exchanging audio clips and sculpting them into the four tracks on Fabulous Morning Swim. With influences ranging from Aphex Twin and Brian Eno to the Fantastic Planet soundtrack, The FMs have forged their own signature sound on their first release.
Nalepa is an electronic musician, multimedia artist and mad scientist collector whose upcoming Flatlands CD/DVD showcases his brand of ambient glitch dub enhanced with videos and remixes from an all-star lineup. The album’s title track appears in Visionare 53: Sound alongside works from 100 sonic visionaries including David Byrne, Cat Power, U2, Lalo Schifrin and more. Nalepa has produced tracks with Bill Laswell, Pharoah Sanders, Lili Haydn and George Clinton, rocked Flavorpill's Friday's Off the 405 Series at the Getty Museum, shared a bill with Amon Tobin, Cut Chemist and DJ Spooky at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and performed on the Do Lab Stage at Coachella 2007. When not crafting sonic cinema with The FMs, Nalepa can be found teaching Music Technology at Chapman University Conservatory of Music, VJing, and collaborating with Italian-born, Tokyo-based dub scientist MattB on their glitchstep/dubhop project Bass Science.
Justin Rickles is a multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer with many tricks up his sleeve. His live bass, layers of guitar feedback and other secret ingredients help give The FMs their shoegaze sound. Justin is primarily known for his output as Brasswork Agency, with past releases on Merck Records, Plex Records and upcoming releases on LeftHouse Records. An in-demand sound engineer, he has worked with everyone from The Young Dubliners to The Edge to Public Enemy. Collaborating with New Millennium Orchestra, he overhauled Beethoven and Shostakovich in a modern electronic style for Motorola’s RAZR launch party with Z-Trip. He can be found playing live or DJing on bills with artists ranging from Pheek and [a]pendics.shuffle to Richard Devine and The Glitch Mob, opening for bands such as The Assassins and The Drastics, and sharing the stage with the world’s top VJs and legendary live painters Norton Wisdom and Alex Gray.
The FMs are expanding with a live show that includes drums, guitars, synthesizers, live electronics and video projections.
For licensing and booking inquiries contact:
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