I decided to 'form' Modulator ESP as an outlet for my desire to produce improvisational electronic music.
I compose my music using synthesizers, sequencers and samplers and spend far too much of my time on sound design. I am into a wide range of music from ambient electronica to thrash metal via all points between and tend to like weird or progressive stuff.
I listen to music because it takes me away from the humdrum reality of everyday life and into new worlds of imagination.
I play music so I can design my own new worlds of sound. I am happy to include in my musical influences such diverse acts as Airsculpture, Dream Theater, IQ, Jean Michel Jarre, Radio Massacre International, Redshift, Tangerine Dream and Yes.

Bio

Born December 1968 - Spent childhood living in various places in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire moved to Nottingham in 1987 to attend what was then Trent Polytechnic.

Early Influences

First album bought - BBC Space Themes - a selection of music from SF and Space TV programs.
Earliest musical influences - Dr Who incidental music created by the BBC Radiophonic workshop and music by French composer Jean Michel Jarre, particularly the albums Oxygene and Equinoxe.

On moving to Nottingham in 1987 to attend Trent Polytechnic, my musical horizons expanded even more and I discovered lots of great bands, including Demon, Hawkwind, Journey, Metallica, Pallas, Queensryche, Saga, Tangerine Dream, Twelfth Night, Yes and loads of other stuff, mostly anything melodic from AOR to prog to metal and all points in-between, usually avoiding anything that could be considered mainstream pop as I preferred music with drama and intensity, experimentation and a wide range of sonic colors.

Kamelian

My first attempt at playing an instrument was whilst I was at Trent Polytechnic - I bought a Kay Les Paul copy guitar from my friend Stuart, but was defeated by a very high action and in the end sold it to another friend. Rock super-stardom nipped in the bud? It put me off playing guitar for a long time. In the early 90's with the advent of grunge I became very disillusioned with the state of rock music, feeling that new bands seemed to have taken a step backwards musically, towards punk, which had had a similar affect on the music scene in the late 70’s, driving all the so-called ‘classic progressive’ rock acts underground. At this point I bought my first synthesizer, the very simple analogue Korg Sigma, and started on what would be a very long journey, with my intended destination being the ability to play the kind of music I loved, because most of my favorite bands seemed to have given up or disappeared underground in the new musical climate. My first musical efforts over the next few years comprised mostly of some very basic synth rock in the Tangerine Dream / Jean Michel Jarre mode, with odd songs that had lyrics sounding very synth pop. Material written  during this period was recorded as Chameleon and later  on I changed the name to Kamelian. A few friends got copies of these tapes and (hopefully) I still have the midi files on disk (not that I have anything I could use to play them )

Spiritland

By 1994 I felt I needed to play with other musicians and advertised to try to get a band together. One person who responded was a certain David Waddington - who it transpired I had a lot in common with musically. So we set about writing and recording our first project 'Spiritland' featuring David on vocals, guitars and bass and myself doing the keyboards and drum programming. The whole project was put together very quickly in my bed-sit, using just a 4-track. People we played it to said it reminded them of Rush, Marillion and Blue Oyster Cult, so we were quite chuffed as we both thought these were great bands and definite musical inspirations. 

Having completed the recording of what became 'Awakenings', we set out to get a band together to perform the songs live. Everyone we had played the tape to had found something in the music that they liked, so it was quite a shock when it transpired that David had sent a copy of the tape off to his musical hero Toyah, who offered him a job playing guitar in her band, leading to rather an abrupt end for Spiritland, and the demise of my first musical collaboration. UPDATE David is now a solo singer and guitarist.

Voyage Within

Time to start looking for other musicians again, this time leading to project number 2, progressive rock band Voyage, this time with myself on keyboards, Simon Rawicz on guitar, Richard Fox on bass, Rob Sheen on vocals and more drum programming this time shared between Simon and myself. At this time we were all heavily into Dream Theater, Rush and Queensryche, all bands playing very technically complex music. So, unsurprisingly we ended up writing music in a similar vein.

Our music tended to be of a very 'progressive' nature which, although technically quite demanding with long songs, time changes, poly-rhythms and odd key changes, tried to include contemporary sounds, incorporating techno and dance drum rhythms into a rock format. It took us a long time to find a vocalist who could sing over the instrumental material we had written and we never found a drummer who could come close to what we wanted in the rhythm department. We only managed to play live on 3 occasions and recorded a 4 track demo at Bandwagon studios in Mansfield with the proceeds from one of our gigs. Voyage seemed like quite a good prospect for some kind of success until differences of opinion between Simon and myself led to my departure in 1997. During this period I had moved to work in Lincolnshire, which didn't help matters at all. I am quite sorry that things turned out how they did, as I had high hopes for the band which had actually become ‘Voyage Within’ when we discovered that there had been a French disco act of the same name in the 70’s.

Made in the Shade/ Shadowdancer

I decided to take a break from bands for a while, as I felt disillusioned with playing with other people and need to spend time working on playing and compositional skills. However, by late 1999 I had that ‘itch’ to play with other people once more. I was working in musical instrument retail at the time and decided to go and see a gig by a couple of people I had met through work. They were Dave Davies (who I had sold a drum machine to) and David Atkins (who always seemed to buy his stuff from the competition) and together they were playing as ‘Made in the Shade’. The gig was at Berlins, in Hockley, a fairly ‘trendy’ bar, and was quite interesting. Musically the Shade were a strange proposition, a combination of folk and rock, with some nice synth sounds/fx married to quite strong bass-lines and some very spacey rock guitar. Visually Mr. Atkins put his all into a very theatrical performance, which was probably wasted on what little audience was present, most of whom seemed to be ignoring what was occurring on stage. However, in my opinion they were trying to do too much, with Mr. Atkins not only singing and playing guitar, but trying to get his backing sequences and drum machine going all at once was proving very difficult. So, afterwards I decided, on the spur of the moment, to offer my services as keyboard player/drum programmer. So began my time with Made in the Shade.

After a while we discovered that the name Made in the Shade was already in use so we decided to change our name to Shadowdancer. We recorded an album entitled 'The Darkness and the Light' featuring re-worked version of songs by both David Atkins and Dave Davies, which was well received by those who had a chance to hear it. Over the course of the next 3 years the band developed a more progressive sound and started work on a new album, featuring more band based compositions. During this time we performed extensively around Nottingham, attracting a diverse range of people. However, by 2003 I felt the need for a change and decided to leave to pursue a more improvisational, instrumental approach, returning to my first love - electronic music. After six months of preparation and planning I felt it was time to start my new project and Modulator ESP was born...

The Evolution of Modulator ESP [2005]

In some ways it could be said that my music seems to have devolved rather than evolved. Or maybe it's just evolved backwards. When I started out making EM it was more in the style of Andy Pickford/ Mark Shreeve, very composed, melodic, rhythmic with lots of layers. This was a sort of side project that I indulged in between being in more prog/ rock oriented band projects (see above). It was never really something I could do live so that was never a consideration. 

I finally decided to go it alone in 2003 and quit the band I was in at the time. I had also recently discovered that there was more to EM than TD, Jarre, Pickford and Shreeve and discovered bands like Arc, RMI, Redshift, Airsculpture, Arcane, STDM etc that were doing a more retro-styled improvisational take on EM, which came as quite a revelation to me, as one of the reasons I'd left the band I was in was that I was tired of the endless rehearsals and want to do something a bit more freeform. I knew I still really wanted to play live and I also knew I didn't want to play along to pre-programmed, structured backing tracks, so my original style was definitely out. 

Things started to snowball from there; especially once I started to get to grips with the Micro Modular's step sequencers. Next up was a Doepfer Regelwerk (hardware analog step sequencer), a Line 6 Echo Pro (delay processor) then a full Nord Modular Keyboard. I got a Doepfer MAQ16/3 (hardware analog step sequencer)  earlier this year and finally integrated it into my setup only recently and am still getting to grips with it. A P3 was purchased at the end of 2005 :)

I got into playing synths because I loved the electronic/ synthetic other worldly nature of the sounds so Ambient/ Berlin School EM is probably the best style for me. I'll probably stick with it, but hopefully stretch the boundaries a little as I get more proficient and incorporate some more of my progressive influences.