UFO! A Bay Area native pioneered the San Francisco Drum and Bass scene and co-founded the Phunckateck collective. An innovative producer.
2002 saw UFO! releasing an original material CD on Thermal Recordings, called "The Future is Listening”. Releases include a mix CD on Vortex called “Maelstrom,” and a special edition mix CD for Circa footwear. UFO! has worked Hive, Echo, and Techno producer John Tejada.
Producing and performing for nearly two decades, UFO! continues to edge forward, staking a position on the outward perimeter of music. Inertia is something this artist has had little use for in the past. Though widely regarded as one of the US's pioneering drum 'n bass artists and DJs, UFO! is poised to reinvent himself as a musician yet again, rising from the miasma of an ever-mutating underground music scene.
A San Francisco native, UFO!—born Ed Garro—was musically baptized by hip hop in the late '80s and early '90s. Mixing and scratching alongside fellow DJs QBert, Shortcut, Quest, and D-Stylz, UFO! quickly ascended to the ranks of battle DJ, learning the skills and exercising them every chance he had. From his youthful days in hip hop, Ed found himself enthralled with the new urban sounds of London: hardcore, jungle, and drum 'n bass. In it he saw a portal into the future, wider than any before. He stepped through, and soon after formed San Francisco's Phunckateck crew in 1996, performing alongside frontrunners such as Goldie, Dieselboy, Photek, and Roni Size at the collective's seminal weekly events. Since then, he has released more than two dozen singles on labels such as Thermal, Position Chrome, Phylum, Vortex, Commercial Suicide, Green, and Phunckateck Communications. He also released his first album, The Future is Listening, on Thermal in 2001, one of the first full-length albums produced by an American drum 'n bass artist.
A move to New York in 2000 brought UFO! to new musical terrains. Not content to rest on his past sterling rep in drum 'n bass, and dissatisfied with what he perceived as the genre's stagnation, he began to delve into the city's skyrocketing dance rock and electroclash scenes, dabbling as much with playing live bass as with the 808. During his time on the east coast, UFO! saw several of his productions featured in new media forums, including on MTV and the hit TV series, CSI:NY.
UFO!'s forthcoming album on Sanguine Recordings, Logic Is Lunacy, finds him turning even further down a new artistic corner—making him the perfect first artist to sign with the future-gazing label. The album is UFO's most dance floor-ready output to date, and his first venture into the 4/4 format. While retaining his signature love of hard, loud distortion and meticulous sound design, the album traces an arc that incorporates a myriad of new forms and styles. From low-end techno to shattered electro-ballads to hook-laden synth rock, UFO! deconstructs and re-fabricates various genre influences in the forge of his imagination. Logic Is Lunacy may also be UFO!'s most personally intimate release, featuring the artist in the role of vocalist for the first time. Ribbons of darkness weave through his lyrics, glittering dimly against his tracks' pop melodies with emotional musings on loves and loss reconciled.
UFO! remixed a track for Hollywood Records, rock band Tinfed, called “Drop”, and several singles including “Tech has Taken Over Me”, “Sideswipe” (produced with Kaos) and “Besame” (produced with Arqer and Realtime).
“Enemy Infiltration”, an anthem of 1999, blazed across the U.S. and abroad. The stunning string arrangement on the track had producers from the revered Trouble on Vinyl label from the U.K. sampling it for one of their own releases called “Mission Control”.
Links:
www.thekonspiracygroup.com
www.shopthermal.com
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