Eat Static

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Eat Static are Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton, a electronic music project from England formed in 1990.

Contents

[edit] History

Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton met as drummer and keyboard player (respectively) for the Ozric Tentacles, a long-standing psychedelic "space-rock" band from Somerset. Although the Ozric Tentacles incorporated elements of electronic music, Pepler and Hinton were drawn towards the rave-oriented dance music. In 1988 they collaborated on a project under the name of Wooden Baby which hinted at early rave and techno sounds as well as numerous other styles, and by 1990, the project had evolved in to Eat Static. Merv explained: "There we were in Ozrics doing all this technically impressive, weird music with mad timings, and getting really involved with it, and this experiment that became Eat Static was a good excuse to ignore all that, get the synths out, and be as stupid as we could!" [1] The duo toured in parallel with the Ozric Tentacles for several years until 1994, when they left the band to pursue Eat Static full-time. Merv and Joie are often joined in the studio by Eat Static's invisible third member Steve Everitt. Merv is featured on the 2006 Ozric Tentacles album 'The Floor's Too Far Away', playing percussion on the track 'Armchair Journey'.[2]

Their first album release, Abduction, immediately established the extra-terrestrial/U.F.O. obsession which is a running motif in their samples, track and album titles, and release artwork. The band's name is taken from a sample (as found on the track Eat Static) from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

[edit] Musicology

Although most often associated with the psychedelic trance genre, the band actually span almost all forms of dance music, including trance, techno, gabber, drum and bass, and breakbeat. As such they are well-compared to other hard-to-categorise children of the British rave scene, like The Prodigy, Underworld, Orbital, Aphex Twin and Leftfield.

The electronic elements are frequently mixed with elements of Latin and world music, jazz, absurdist masturbatory soloing, and so on, which helps to give the band's work its distinctively tongue-in-cheek humour, along with the often kitsch vocal samples from B-Movies and TV.

Despite the quote above, Eat Static are also notable within dance music for their frequent use of time signatures other than 4/4.

As of 2006, Eat Static continue to tour their live act.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Cassette

  • Prepare Your Spirit (Alien Records (UK) 1992)

[edit] 12"

  • Inanna (Alien Records (UK) 1991)
  • Monkey Man (Alien Records (UK) 1991)
  • The Alien E.P. (Alien Records (UK) 1991)

[edit] CD

Many of the Planet Dog releases are still available at www.planetdogrecords.com

[edit] Other projects

Eat Static also produced the soundtrack for the RTS game Conquest Earth, published by Eidos Interactive. The game media also contains the music in Red Book audio format, allowing it to be played back in any standalone CD player.

Merv Pepler, one half of Eat Static, released a breakbeat/drum and bass solo project album under the name 'Dendron'. The album was called 'Supernatural Jazz' and was released on their own Mesmobeat label. Pepler also teamed up with Steve Jolliffe of Tangerine Dream to form 'Hi Fi Companions' and released the 2004 album 'Swingers In Paradise' on Twisted Records. This project is often classed under lounge music and has a 1950's feel mixed with modern electronica. Steve Jolliffe had previously teamed up with Eat Static appearing on their 'Crash and Burn!' and 'Science of the Gods' albums. In 2005 Merv Pepler's collaboration with Will White of the Propellerheads, called 'Flexitones', released their debut album 'Joyrider' again through Twisted Records. Will White had previously teamed up with Eat Static on the tracks 'Dervish Funk', appearing on the 'Crash and Burn!' album, as well as on the 'Mondo A Go-Go!' single track 'Wall Banger'. Merv and Will had previously released tracks under the name Champaigne Charlie. Merv has also teamed up with Shane Thomson and Jamie Nott to from Cosmic Journey Project. Merv's project with Simon Posford (Hallucinogen, Shpongle) called 'Metal Sharon' has so far released one track, 'Balloon Dance' once again through Twisted Records. More tracks from 'Metal Sharon' are set to be released through twisted records, and a new 'Dendron' album is on the way. Recently Merv has joined with Xavier Morel to make music under the name 'MX Experiments'.

Joie Hinton, the other half of Eat Static, has released an album under the name Nodens Ictus. Joie teamed up with Ed Wynne from the Ozric Tentacles for this ambient project. The album was called 'Spacelines' and was a collection of tracks recorded earlier in their careers, although it featured two tracks written in 2000. Merv appears in a smaller role on the album and used to play live with Joie and Ed. Joie is also a member of space rock band Dream Machine, together with Ozric fontman Champignon. Joie also plays Live with Ozrics Bassplayers Zia's Sideproject ZubZub and Plays Synths for Here & Now

Steve Everitt, Eat Static's studio based third member, has released two tracks on Planet Dog compilations under the name Alien Progeny.

Other Album Projects Released -

[edit] References

  1. ^ Eat the Beat.. Sound On Sound Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-09-13.
  2. ^ Error on call to Template:cite web: Parameters url and title must be specified. Eat Static. Retrieved on 2006-07-12.

[edit] External links

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