Astroboy as it exists today really began back in 1998 when I was introduced to another musician through a mutual friend, who himself was interested in starting some sort of band or project. It began with us merely discussing all sorts of crazy ideas, but nothing came of it until the three of us sat down with a digital 4-track and got to work.
Armed with nothing more than a basic drum machine, a bass guitar and a toy casio keyboard, the three of us started creating experimental sounds under the name of ’Shapeshifters’.
The mutual friend who introduced me to third guy then left, leaving myself and my new friend to plough on by ourselves. After about 6 months worth of work, we completed an album which I released online via the ennui netlabel. Shortly after, work began on what would be album2, but we eventually drifted apart due to personal life circumstances and this inspired me to buy my own 4-track and continue working on my own under the name of ’Astroboy’. However, in spite of the benefits of digital, I decided to opt for an analogue 4-track due to cheapness and accessibility.
Between 1999-2001, I created tirelessly, experimenting with sound manipulation techniques, tape loops and other assorted weirdness, incorporating samplers, toy keyboards (which I ran through guitar effects pedals), radios, guitars, old computers, dictaphones and basically any sound-generating devices or instruments I could lay my hands on. The results were committed to tape and released online via my label and my music enjoyed a cult following in the underground DIY tape scenes, with many tracks appearing on compilations released by other DIY labels including Morc Records and Tangerine Tapes.
Around 2000, I also started playing with a package called Music 2000 which was available for the PlayStation and I would make the odd tune with this when I fancied a break from all the 4-track stuff. What I found in Music 2000 was a limited, but reasonably versatile version of the kind of music production packages available for PCs. It obviously lacked the full abilities of a PC program, but allowed enough scope for me to create my own compositions with ease; the perception was that Music 2000 was all about bolting preset beats and melodies together, and whilst this may have been an option for less imaginative users, it was something I avoided doing, choosing instead to create everything myself from the ground-up. Also, as with the 4-track and analogue stuff I was working on, Music 2000 presented its own challenges and limitations, which only spurred me to use my imagination to get the best from it.
In that crossover period between 2000 and 2001, I started to move more towards Music 2000 as I was getting bored of the 4-track stuff and becoming increasingly more dissatisfied with analogue’s generally inferior sound quality. As such, I sought to push this new package to its limits as best as I could. Around this time, I’d also joined a band called ’Alharrass’ in which I played keyboards, programmed beats and wrote some of the songs, leaving my creative output somewhat divided between the band and my solo work, the latter of which largely took a back seat as I focused on band commitments.
Like all the best bands, Alharrass fizzled in 2003 due to internal conflicts (we were just starting to take off as well...), so I returned to my Astroboy projects, and it was around that time I finally joined the 21st century and got the PC-based setup I’d wanted for some time. With the new technology, I was able to bridge the gap between my old and new material by combining my 4-track experimental techniques with the sampling and manipulation possibilities afforded via digital mediums.
The rest, as they say is history.
Enjoy the music.
To hear more:
Now playing: astroboy
www.amazing-tunes.com (search for ’astroboy’).
Some of my albums can be purchased here (mp3 and CD format):
For the full Astroboy catalogue !! CLICK HERE !!
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And if you like what you hear on this page, check out the music of Oplexium (see my top friends for details), a sometimes collaborative partner existing within a different part of the same universe.
