Mixmag ANZ: Signer returns to '00-04'
Twenty-plus years on, the Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington-based composer, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer revisits his golden dub techno moment with Martyn Pepperell.
Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes, it takes completely different forms.
In 1996, Oblique, the live electronica trio of then-Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington-based musicians Matthew Mitchell, Shannon Holm, and Bevan Smith, contributed three red-hot acid tracks to one of the first New Zealand techno compilations, Skankatronics Pure Wellingtronika.
Since then, Smith, a Ngāmotu/New Plymouth-raised composer, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer with a cheeky grin and an infectious chuckle, has masterminded or co-created a dizzying array of world-class electronica, ambient, and indie projects. Release by release, he’s earned himself a cult reputation with discerning pockets of music lovers worldwide.
Best known for his landmark IDM and dub techno releases as Aspen and Signer or for soundtracking the BAFTA-winning survival documentary Touching the Void (2003), Smith’s instincts to combine live instrumentation and programmed production helped pave the way for a generation of musicians from Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu who’ve divided their creative impulses between playing in bands, producing dance music on laptops and DJing.
Along the way, he founded the boutique label Involve Records, which provided an early platform for a coterie of like-minded musicians and producers, including Jet Jaguar, Andrew Thomas, All The Pretty Things, Mandrake, Slow Moe, Voicechanger, and T.C. Wedde. In the process, they delivered on the label’s mission statement, “Explorations in pop, indie, electronica and places in-between”.
As the 21st century dawned, Smith spent four years living and working in London, where he pursued artistic and commercial opportunities in music production for record labels, advertising and film and television. Lately, he’s been revisiting the copious amounts of ambient electronica and deep, dubby techno he recorded during that stretch while working with Perfect Location Records and Ear Candy Music on 00-04, an immaculately curated compilation of previously released and unreleased Signer material. On tracks like ‘1201B’ and ‘N15 SUNSET’, emotional chords, misty textures, and chugging machine beats dovetail into his world-class take on atmospheric dub techno.
During the second half of the 2000s, Smith became more focused on the guitar music world while collaborating with his high school friend, the jazz composer Matthew Mitchell, as Skallander and playing instruments in the indie pop groups Over The Atlantic and The Ruby Suns. He also worked behind the scenes as an engineer and producer for the Kiwi experimental rock bands Thought Creature and Glass Vaults and, later, the dream pop sibling trio Womb. Fittingly, sensibilities drawn from ambient and electronica, particularly dub techno, remain crucial to his musical makeup, as evidenced by the ongoing 24-part Isolated Dreams Bandcamp release series.
Mixmag ANZ met up with Smith at a suburban community centre in Te Whanganui a Tara on a sunny Sunday afternoon in late May. You can read the full feature here.
PSA:
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DJ MIXES
Motion Capture 2 is one-hour DJ mix of ambient, dub techno and IDM tracks recorded on the islands of Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu during the 1990s and the 2000s. RIYL: Nurture, Involve, Systematic, Kog Transmissions, Obscure, etc.
Think of this one as a warm-up set, gently building the vibe for the main event.
In a special guest mix for my friend Marissa’s Not Your Mother’s Tongue show on London’s Loose FM, I cast my mind back and explored the sounds of late 90s/early 2000s downtempo, IDM and neo-soul from the islands of Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu, better known as New Zealand.
FIN.