Bio

I started my lifelong relationship with music at an early age. I was born into a musical family and my father started to teach me the violin at the age of four using the infamous Suzuki method that emphasizes ear-training. As a young teenager I purchased my first four-track tape recorder along with a Roland SH101 monosynth and took my first steps in writing and producing my own music.

In Manchester, at the age of 20, I discovered one of the first music technology courses in the country. Here I was introduced to Cubase on an Atari ST computer – I had discovered sequencing and I loved it straight away.

Towards the end of my course I got a work placement with a new studio in Manchester called Planet 4. Starting off as tea boy/assistant I was soon engineering sessions with the likes of Justin Robertson, 808 State (there’s a little video of us in the studio here) and Peter Hook. Through assisting on a 3-month Simply Red session, I met London based producer/programmer Andy Wright. He suggested I come to London to further my career and hooked me up with DJ/Producer Dom T.

With Dom T I started remixing various artists such as Bjork and Depeche Mode. We also co-wrote and produced the breakbeat/pop album (Learning Curve) for Drum and Bass pioneer DJ Rap. It was a critical success and spawned two UK top 30 singles (‘Bad Girl‘ and ‘Good to be Alive‘).

The success of the DJ Rap album brought new opportunities – I started working with Dave Bascombe (producer of Tears for Fears and a very successful mix engineer), and I also contributed to the Bush album ‘The Science of Things’.

In 2001 Andy Wright asked me to get involved in a Jeff Beck album project. Andy wanted me to come up with some ‘filthy beats’. Jeff was disillusioned with the conventional nature of the sounds coming from his band and embraced the radical stuff that I was cooking up in the little studio next door. The album (‘You Had It Coming‘) was a big critical and commercial success, and one of the tracks I was heavily involved with (‘Dirty Mind’) won an Emmy.

In 2001 I started working with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics). The first project I was involved with was the Jimmy Cliff album ‘Fantastic Plastic People’. Over the next couple of years I was involved with all sorts of other Dave Stewart projects, from Film soundtracks, musical scores to writing with Gwen Stefani – there was never a dull moment as all sorts of famous and/or interesting people orbited planet Stewart.

In 2003 I started working with Nellee Hooper (producer of Massive Attack’s ‘Protection’, Bjork’s ‘Debut’, etc) on some Gwen Stefani tracks. Over the next five years I worked on numerous projects with Nellee including some Nelly Furtado tracks and an Andrea Corr album (‘Ten Feet High‘).

In 2006 I got asked to help finish an album (called ‘We can Create‘) for new Mute records signing ‘Maps’. This album was Mercury prize nominated and I was subsequently involved in a better known project on the same label; Goldfrapp (album ‘Seventh Tree’)

Since 2009 I have been based in Istanbul where I continue to write and produce, sometimes traveling to the UK or other places for collaborations.

Over the years in between the various work projects I have been involved in a number of collaborations, productions and solo projects with numerous singers, bands and DJs. Since 2004 the main one has been Forty Thieves Orkestar.

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