Apollo 440

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Apollo 440
Background information
Origin Liverpool, England
Genre(s) Electronica
Electro rock
Big Beat
Techno
House
Dance
Years active 1990 – Present
Label(s) Stealth Sonic Recordings
550 Music
Epic Records
Website http://www.apollo440.com/
Members
Trevor Gray
Howard Gray
Noko
Former members
Mary Mary
Paul Kodish

Apollo 440 (alternately known as Apollo Four Forty or @440) are an English musical band formed in 1990 in Liverpool by brothers Trevor and Howard Gray with fellow Liverpudlians Noko and James Gardner, although Gardner left after the recording of the first album. All members sing and add a profusion of samples, electronics, and computer-based sounds. The name comes from the Greek god Apollo and the frequency of concert pitch — the A note at 440 Hz, often denoted as "A440".

After relocating to the Camden area of London, Apollo 440 recorded their debut album, Millennium Fever, and released it in 1994 on their own Stealth Sonic Recordings label (distributed by Epic Records). They have successfully invaded both the pop charts and the dancefloor with their combination of rock, techno, and ambient. They also changed the writing of their name from Apollo 440 to Apollo Four Forty in 1996, though switched back for their latest album.

The band had been most known for its remixes until the release of Liquid Cool in the UK. However, it was not until the success of the singles Krupa and Ain't Talkin' 'bout Dub that their own musical efforts were brought to international attention — particularly the latter contributed greatly to pushing Apollo 440 into the spotlight.

Currently, the band resides in Islington, London, having once again moved its headquarters (affectionately labelled Apollo Control).

Contents

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

[edit] Singles

[edit] Soundtracks

Apollo 440's music is often found featured in various soundtracks of all sorts: movies (notably the reworked theme to the movie Lost in Space), games, and shows. The list of soundtracks they have contributed to is long - accordingly, this list only includes soundtracks which are exclusively done by Apollo 440.

  • Rapid Racer (1997), format: PlayStation CD (Audio CD plus game data track). The soundtrack was also available as an extra CD, as part of the limited edition double cd single release of "Carrera Rapida"
  • EyeToy: AntiGrav (2004), format: PlayStation 2 DVD

[edit] Vocalists

Apollo Four Forty have a history of working together with various vocalists to achieve their musical goals. Whilst their debut album, Millennium Fever, was sung almost exclusively by Noko, the Liverpudlian has since withdrawn from his vocalist status in the band to make way for various guest appearances, including, but not limited to:

  • Billy MacKenzie on Pain In Any Language (Album: Electro Glide in Blue), coincidentially the last song Billy recorded.
  • Ewan MacFarlane on Electro Glide in Blue (Album: Electro Glide In Blue) and numerous tracks on the Dude Descending a Staircase album
  • Xan on Something's Got to Give (Album: Dude Descending a Staircase)
  • Jalal Nuriddin on Children of the Future (Album: Dude Descending a Staircase)
  • The Beatnuts on Dude Descending a Staircase (Album: Dude Descending a Staircase)
  • Elizabeth Gray on Christiane (Album: Dude Descending a Staircase) and Stealth Mass (Album: Electro Glide in Blue)
  • Mary Mary (Ian Hoxley) on Ain't Talkin' 'bout Dub, Raw Power (Album: Electro Glide in Blue) and Stop The Rock (Album: Gettin' High On Your Own Supply).

[edit] Tributes

[edit] Jean Baudrillard

The album Millennium Fever is a tribute to the French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard. Since the release of that album, other references to Jean Baudrillard's works have popped up.

  • The track Astral America, references Baudrillard's America essay, where the term originates.
  • The track The Perfect Crime, references Baudrillard's book of the same name.
  • The lyrics of Stealth Requiem reference the Baudrillardian concept of hyperreality. At one point a female voice says "Ravishing hyperrealism ... Mind blowing", and later quotes directly from America (1988): "The exhilaration of obscenity; the obscenity of obviousness; the obviousness of power; the power of simulation."

[edit] Marcel Duchamp

The album Dude Descending a Staircase has a cover as tribute to Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp.

[edit] Alcor

The song Liquid Cool (released as a b-side in 1993, as a single in 1994, and featured on the Millennium Fever album) is a tribute to Alcor, a company focused to pursue research into and the organization of cryonization. The topic is also referenced in the title-song Millennium Fever, which includes the "I've been dreaming of freezing my mind in California" where Alcor was based until 1994. Contact details for Alcor subsequently appeared on the sleeve of the single Don't Fear The Reaper (a cover of the Blue Öyster Cult song).

[edit] Omega Point

The song Omega Point references the concept of the same name, and features a quote from Barrow and Tipler's "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" (p676): "At the instant the Omega Point is reached, life will have gained control of all matter and forces not only in a single universe, but in all universes whose existence is logically possible; life will have spread into all spatial regions in all universes which could logically exist, and will have stored an infinite amount of information, including all bits of knowledge which it is logically possible to know."

[edit] Covers, remixes, reprises, samples etc.

  • Ain't Talkin' 'bout Dub uses a sample from a popular hit of hard rock band Van Halen, Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love.
  • For the Depeche Mode tribute album For the Masses, Apollo 440 covered I Feel You.
  • Liquid Cool seems to include a Blondie sample (from the song Fade Away and Radiate in Parallel Lines).
  • Stop the Rock's guitar riff comes from Caroline, originally played by Status Quo and the howling theremin comes from The Beach Boys Good Vibrations (heard from 0:25 to 1:41); both these claims are unconfirmed.

[edit] Trivia

  • Stop the Rock (particularly portions containing the lyrics "can't stop the rock") is played after each goal scored at home games of the Toronto Rock Lacrosse team.
  • Howard Gray, along with Art Brut/Razorlight producer John Fortis, produced Assembly Now's Apollo Control Demo at Apollo 440's London-based recording studio Apollo Control.
  • "Can't Stop The Rock" has become a fad on the spoof site ytmnd.com. YTMNDs generally set the refrain "You can't stop the rock/Can't stop the rock" to a clip of Indiana Jones running from a boulder in Raiders of The Lost Ark
  • Apollo 440 were accused of using a Status Quo sample in "can't stop the rock". The band refuted this, saying that it was a riff that they had recorded themselves, although it is very much in the style of Status Quo.

[edit] External links

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