Downwards Records
Downwards Records is a record label founded by the techno DJs and producers Regis and Female in Birmingham, England in 1993. The label was initially established to release the set of tracks that fellow Birmingham DJ and producer Surgeon had recorded in the small studio that ex-Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris had built in his downstairs toilet. Although most closely associated with techno's Birmingham sound, which it pioneered, the label has released a wide range of music, from garage rock and shoegaze to industrial music and electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos .... References British independent record labels Techno record labels Record labels based in Birmingham, West Midlands {{Independent-record-label-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Record Label
"Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacturing, manufacture, distribution (marketing), distribution, marketing, promotion, and enforcement of copyright for sound recordings and music videos, while also conducting Artists and repertoire, talent scouting and development of new artists, artist financing and maintaining Recording contract, contracts with recording artists and their managers. The term "record label" derives from the circular label in the center of a vinyl record which prominently displays the manufacturer's name, along with other information. Within the mainstream music industry, recording artists have traditionally been reliant upon record labels to broaden their consumer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Techno
Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat. Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's Roland TR-808 and Roland TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular in this style. Much of the instrumentation in techno is used to emphasize the role of rhythm over other musical aspects. Vocals and melodies are uncommon. The use of sound synthesis in developing distinctive timbres tends to feature more prominently. Typical harmonic practices found in other forms of music are often ignored in favor of repetitive sequences of notes. More generally the creatio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Regis (musician)
Karl O'Connor, known professionally as Regis, is an Irish-born British techno musician and record label owner.Regis’s classic 2001 LP Penetration reissued , '''' Magazine, 10 May 2003, retrieved 20 June 2010 As co-founder of Downwards Records, O'Connor, alongside his label-mate (aka Anthony Child), was one of the originators of the [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Female (musician)
An organism's sex is female (symbol: ♀) if it produces the ovum (egg cell), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete (sperm cell) during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females and males are results of the anisogamous reproduction system, wherein gametes are of different sizes (unlike isogamy where they are the same size). The exact mechanism of female gamete evolution remains unknown. In species that have males and females, sex-determination may be based on either sex chromosomes, or environmental conditions. Most female mammals, including female humans, have two X chromosomes. Characteristics of organisms with a female sex vary between different species, having different female reproductive systems, with some species showing characteristics secondary to the reproductive system, as with mammary glands in mammals. In humans, the word ''female'' can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or g ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the List of English districts by population, largest local authority district in England by population and the second-largest city in Britain – commonly referred to as the second city of the United Kingdom – with a population of million people in the city proper in . Birmingham borders the Black Country to its west and, together with the city of Wolverhampton and towns including Dudley and Solihull, forms the West Midlands conurbation. The royal town of Sutton Coldfield is incorporated within the city limits to the northeast. The urban area has a population of 2.65million. Located in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of England, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midland ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Surgeon (musician)
Anthony Child (born 1 May 1971), better known as Surgeon, is an English electronic musician and disc jockey, DJ. Child releases music on his own Record label, labels Counterbalance and Dynamic Tension. Established imprints, such as Tresor Records, Tresor, Soma Quality Recordings, Soma, and Harthouse, have also released Surgeon's original material and remixes. He has also been recognized as one of the first wave of DJs to use Ableton Live and Final Scratch to supplement his DJ sets. Biography Child grew up in Kislingbury, in Northamptonshire, England. In 1989, he moved to Birmingham to study audio-visual design, where he played in a jazz fusion, jazz/rock/fusion band called Blim, and learned to DJ from friend Paul Damage. At that time, there were no Techno clubs in Birmingham so he and his friends started House of God, and by 1992 he was DJing there regularly. In 1994, he released his eponymous debut EP on Downwards Records. Child is also known for several significant artist col ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Napalm Death
Napalm Death are an English grindcore band formed in Meriden, West Midlands, in 1981. None of the band's original members have been in the group since 1986, but since ''Utopia Banished'' (1992), the lineup of bassist Shane Embury, guitarist Mitch Harris, drummer Danny Herrera and lead vocalist Barney Greenway, Mark "Barney" Greenway has remained consistent through most of the band's career. From 1989 to 2004, Napalm Death were a five-piece band after they added Jesse Pintado and Mitch Harris as replacements for guitarist Bill Steer. Following Pintado's departure, the band reverted to a four-piece. The band is credited as pioneers of the grindcore genre by incorporating elements of crust punk and death metal, using a noise-filled sound that uses Distortion (music), distorted, Dropped tuning, down-tuned guitars, grinding Fuzz bass, overdrive bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, vocals that consist of incomprehensible Death growl, growls or high-pitched shrieks, extremely short so ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mick Harris
Michael John Harris (born 4 October 1967) is an English musician from Birmingham. He was the drummer for Napalm Death between 1985 and 1991, and is credited for coining the term "grindcore". After Napalm Death, Harris joined Painkiller with John Zorn and Bill Laswell. Since the mid-1990s, Harris has worked primarily in electronic and ambient music, his main projects being Scorn and Lull. He has also collaborated with musicians including James Plotkin and Extreme Noise Terror. According to AllMusic, Harris's "genre-spanning activities have done much to jar the minds, expectations, and record collections of audiences previously kept aggressively opposed." Early life Michael John Harris was born in Birmingham, England. He grew up listening to the radio shows of John Peel and would later record Peel Sessions with both Napalm Death and Scorn. Harris was influenced by listening to bands such as Coil and Skinny Puppy. He started playing drums in 1984 at the age of 16, after a fri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birmingham Sound
The Birmingham sound is a subgenre of techno that emerged in Birmingham, England in the early 1990s. It is most commonly associated with the city's House of God club night, the Downwards Records label, and the local DJs and producers Regis, Surgeon and Female. It is characterised by a hard, fast and uncompromising style that strips the music of the bassline funk that characterised the techno of Detroit and Berlin, leaving only "huge slabs of unrelentingly unchanging minimalism". The Birmingham sound marked a turning point in the development of techno and its influence can be heard throughout the Berlin techno of the Berghain and Ostgut Ton Ostgut Ton (also known as Ostgut Tonträger) is a German record label owned by the club Berghain in Berlin. Resident Advisor described it "a dominant force in dance music, beloved for its mix series and dozens of EPs, albums and compilations." T .... It also formed the starting point for Regis and Female's later Sandwell District project. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Garage Rock
Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock music that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The style is characterized by basic chord (music), chord structures played on electric guitars and other instruments, sometimes distorted through a distortion (music), fuzzbox, as well as often unsophisticated and occasionally aggressive lyrics and delivery. Its name derives from the perception that groups were often made up of young amateurs who rehearsed in the family Garage (residential), garage, although many were professional. In the US and Canada, surf rock—and later the Beatles and other beat music, beat groups of the British Invasion—motivated thousands of young people to form bands between 1963 and 1968. Hundreds of grass-roots acts produced regional hits, some of which gained national popularity, usually played on AM radio stations. Wi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shoegaze
Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with dream pop) is a subgenre of indie rock, indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion (music), distortion and effects, audio feedback, feedback, and overwhelming volume.Pete Prown / Harvey P. Newquist: "One faction came to be known as dream-pop or "shoegazers" (for their habit of looking at the ground while playing the guitars on stage). They were musicians who played trancelike, ethereal music that was composed of numerous guitars playing heavy droning chords wrapped in echo effects and phase shifters.", Hal Leonard 1997, It emerged in Ireland and the United Kingdom in the late 1980s among neo-psychedelic groups who usually stood motionless during live performances in a detached, non-confrontational state. The name comes from the heavy use of effects pedals, as the performers were often looking down at their pedals during such concerts. My Bloody Valentin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |