Overview

Here's some information some selected electronica artists.

Aphex Twin	Aphex Twin, in real life Richard D. James, has been making ambient music since the late '80's under a variety of names including Polygon Window and AFX on different labels. He has released two collections of his ambient works, titled (surprisingly enough) "Selected Ambient Works I and II". He also released a remixed version of Gavin Bryars' orchestral work "The Sinking of the Titanic". His latest album is simply called "Richard D. James" and features "Girl/Boy Song". Most recent single is "Windowlicker".
Autechre are one of those bands who lie on the border between ambient and dance music. This duo hail from Manchester and have built up a large presence worldwide, originating with their 1993 first album "Incunabula". I don't have too much of their music, only a 1994 release titled "Amber", which was recommended to me while I was in St. Louis this summer. "The Wire" future music magazine chose the third Autechre album "Tri Repetae" as their electronica album of the year, and it also made it into Melody Maker's top 50 albums in 1995.	Autechre
Chemical Brothers	Chemical Brothers originally wanted to call themselves the Dust Brothers, but much to their dismay found another band with the same name in California threatening to sue them if they didn't change their name :( Their first album "Exit Planet Dust" features the great track "Leave Home", more commonly referred to as "The Brothers' Gonna Work it Out" because of a sample with those words. The "Dig Your Own Hole" album resulted in a number of successful singles including "Block Rockin' Beats", and the Noel Gallagher collaboration based on the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows", titled "Setting Sun".
Daft Punk and Laurent Garnier were part of the new wave of electronica artists from France. Daft Punk's ingenius videos have helped their catchy music to take off on both sides of the Atlantic. Don't tell me you haven't seen their video of the man with a dog's head and hands travelling around New York carrying a blaring radio and his leg in a cast? Or the mesmeric "Around the World" video with all those little skeletons and robots and astronauts running up and down those steps in sync with the music and flashing lights? The videos from Daft Punk's latest album, "Discovery", form a set of Japanese animations.	Daft Punk
Future Sound of London	FSOL first came to fame with their 1992 hit "Papua New Guinea" and have been producing progressively better music ever since then. Their 1994 "Lifeforms" 2 CD album was an ambient electronic classic, and deserves a place on the shelf of all enthusiasts of the genre. They had a live broadcast of their "ISDN" album in 1995 and subsequently released the music on a limited 1000 copy CD. "Dead Cities" features the singles "My Kingdom" and the bombastic "We Have Explosive".
Jarre's first commercial release was the 1977 album "Oxygene", which contains that all-famous "Oxygene 4" tune. In 1997, he released a follow-up album titled "Oxygene 7-13" which lived up to the original in certain respects, and showed the influence of the years in between. The oldest Jarre story is of the album he made one pressing of. He destroyed the master tapes and auctioned it under the title "Music for Supermarkets" for charity. It was subsequently broadcast in a once-off mono airing on Radio Luxembourg.	Jean-Michel Jarre
Kraftwelt	Where would we be without German originalists Kraftwerk? Well, this band would be without a name and an influence for one, dedicating their first album "Electric Dimension" to Ralf and Florian from the original band. Kraftwelt are from Denmark, and their first single in the US was called "Deranged in Space". Other recommended tracks are "The Fiery Angels of Orc" and "Confusion". Latest album is "Retroish".
The Orb derived their name from Woody Allen's film "Sleeper" and the device of the future, the Orgasmatron ("Touch the Orb!"). Their biggest hit was the wonderful "Little Fluffy Clouds", featuring little snippets of someone called Rickie Lee Jones who wasn't all that happy about being portrayed as a spaced-out hippy on the track. I went to see them in Dublin in March, but the spaced-out feeling of the concert was dissappointing. Listen to "U.F.Orb" or "Orbus Terrarum" instead!	Orb
Orbital	Orbital's 1996 album "In Sides" is one of my favourite albums of the year. "The Box" was written by the Hartnoll brothers with the theme song from the "Ipcress Files" in mind. They re-recorded the title track for "The Saint", and also a new version of their "Satan" song with Kirk Hammett from Metallica I think (sounds, eh, interesting!). Latest film project is on "Event Horizon" with Michael Kamen, a hero of theirs because of his music on the film "Brazil". Their most recent album is "The Altogether".
Why am I mentioning these people I know very little about? Maybe it's their samurai-sounding track "Two Swords Technique" which can regularly be seen on MTV. This group are another of the new artists featured on the Caroline/Astralwerks electronica label, and have recorded a number of songs for a 'soundtrack' to a computer game called "Wipeout XL". More later...	Photek
Ryuichi Sakamoto	Ryuichi Sakamoto is sometimes called the "David Bowie" of Japan, releasing albums focussing on different musical styles every year. He first came to fame with the Japanese synthesizer outfit "Yellow Magic Orchestra" in the '80's, and co-wrote the original, very different version of "Behind the Mask", later recorded by (eek!) Eric Clapton. He is probably most famous for the theme song to the film "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", and has re-entered the electronica area with "Replica" and "TV War".
No doubt you've either heard of Underworld because of their "Born Slippy" track from "Trainspotting", or "Moaner" from "Batman and Robin" recently, but you need to go back to their 1994 album "dubnobasswithmyheadman" to hear them at their best. Just listen to the track "Mmm, Skyscraper, I Love You" and tell me you don't like it. Go on, try it! Their latest studio album "Beaucoup Fish" features "King of Snake".	Underworld

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