Andrew Meecham is The Emperor Machine, one of the best producers working in electronic music at the moment. A soundclash between influences as diverse as Can, early Human League, Hawkwind, George Clinton and Kraftwerk, Meecham's Krautrock-Disco bubbles and squeaks with analogue rock intensity while remaning funky enough to get your groove on.
Meecham started out in seminal 90's house/rave group Bizarre Inc. alongside Carl Tuner and Dean Meredith. They had a string of hits including "Playing With Knives" and "I'm Gonna Get You", both of which charted in the UK (the former hit #3, the latter #4) as well as the US (#47), and both are considered "club classics".
"Playing With Knives":
Visuals aside, the music is infectious. Live drums keep metronomic time, sinewave melodies gurgle and belch and syncopated basslines move each song forward. Meecham works dynamics to their full potential giving the disco swing a proper beginning, middle and end, in some cases using the Krautrock staple motorik beat to hypnotic effect.
In addition to a slew of killer singles, Meecham has been busy remixing everyone from Moby and Röyksopp to Stephen Malkmus and The Knife, which might be his best remix effort to date: Meecham takes the vocal from the Swedish duo's "Marble House" and lays a sick slo-mo disco backbeat underneath it, all while perserving the electro edge of the original. A random person on a message board I read regularly declared it the "best remix EVER" and while I don't know about that, it sure is damn good.
All six 12" volumes of the Vertical Tones series are still available, as is the CD that compiles them all in one convenient place with a few extras. Search and destroy!
In addition to a slew of killer singles, Meecham has been busy remixing everyone from Moby and Röyksopp to Stephen Malkmus and The Knife, which might be his best remix effort to date: Meecham takes the vocal from the Swedish duo's "Marble House" and lays a sick slo-mo disco backbeat underneath it, all while perserving the electro edge of the original. A random person on a message board I read regularly declared it the "best remix EVER" and while I don't know about that, it sure is damn good.
All six 12" volumes of the Vertical Tones series are still available, as is the CD that compiles them all in one convenient place with a few extras. Search and destroy!
I like to play all the videos at the same time. Pow!