Paul Antonio Ortiz is an English

multi-instrumentalist A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments at a professional level of proficiency. Also known as doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and more efficient employment of musicians, where a ...

, best known for his work under the pseudonym, or solo project, of Chimp Spanner. He recorded, produced, mixed and mastered in his home studio, both the 2005 album ''

Imperium Vorago ''Imperium Vorago'' the debut album by the progressive metal project Chimp Spanner. It was released in January 2005 independently. When Chimp Spanner signed to Basick Records, the album became available on the iTunes Store. Track listing ...

'' and 2009's '' At The Dream's Edge''. Ortiz has also composed for computer games, advertising, television and radio — and for clients ranging from

Red Bull Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks of Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With 38% market share, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2019. Since its launch in 1987, more than 100 billion cans of Red Bull have been sold worldwide, inc ...

Dolby Laboratories Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (often shortened to Dolby Labs and known simply as Dolby) is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and HDR imaging. Dolby licenses its technologies to ...

— and mixed and mastered albums for other musicians.

Music productions

Chimp Spanner

Ortiz categorizes the work under his Chimp Spanner moniker as an ambient/progressive metal project, combining heavy guitars with ambient textures,

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 started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to ...

and melodic elements, whilst also demonstrating his guitar virtuosity. Chimp Spanner is often labelled as

djent Djent () is a subgenre of progressive metal characterised by its use of off-beat and complex rhythm patterns. Its distinctive sound is that of high-gain, distorted, palm-muted, down-tuned strings. The name "djent" is an onomatopoeia of this s ...

or progressive metal. 2005 saw the release of his debut album ''

'', which as well as being self financed and produced, was also distributed by Ortiz himself, without the backing of a distribution company. Ortiz released his second album entitled '' At The Dream's Edge'' in December 2009. The album is available in a physical format and as a download. On 5 March 2010, Ortiz's project Chimp Spanner signed a deal with Basick Records for the album ''At the Dream's Edge'', which was officially released April 10, 2010. With the signing to Basick Records, Ortiz began to perform live under the alias Chimp Spanner. The live Chimp Spanner lineup consists of himself, guitarist Jim Hughes, bassist Adam Swan (also of Monuments) and drummer Boris Le Gal. In early 2012, Ortiz released his first EP under the Chimp Spanner name, ''All Roads Lead Here'', which is focused around a three-movement piece called Möbius. The EP was originally scheduled to be released in May 2011, but was delayed due to personal reasons. In July/August 2012, Chimp Spanner embarked on their first tour of the United States, alongside

Jeff Loomis Jeff Loomis (born September 14, 1971) is an American musician, best known for his role as lead guitarist in the progressive metal band Nevermore during its existence from 1991 to 2011, as well as brief tenures in its precursor, Sanctuary. In ...

, The Contortionist, and

7 Horns 7 Eyes 7 Horns 7 Eyes is an American Christian death metal band based out of Seattle, Washington. The band formed in 2006 and released their debut album ''Throes of Absolution'' on April 24, 2012, on Century Media Records in North America and Basick ...

. Ortiz enlisted Anup Sastry (Intervals, Skyharbor) and Gregory Macklin (Ordinance) to handle drum and guitar duties respectively, since he could not bring his regular live band to the US with him. In November 2018, Ortiz announced that he is writing material for a new Chimp Spanner full-length.

Blessed Inertia

In October 2009, Ortiz unveiled a new project under the name Blessed Inertia. Classed as technical progressive metal on its Myspace page, Blessed Inertia is a more straightforward, guitar-driven project. Ortiz stated that Blessed Inertia would be his live band, and although currently instrumental, would incorporate a vocalist at a later date. The project is currently on hiatus due to Ortiz's commitments to Chimp Spanner. Alongside Ortiz, Blessed Inertia currently only consists of one other member, Chimp Spanner's live guitarist Jim Hughes. Both Ortiz and Hughes are cited as playing guitar, bass and drums.

Monuments

Ortiz was a live guitarist for

Monuments A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, his ...

before they secured Olly Steele (formerly of Cyclamen) as their full time second guitarist.

ZETA

ZETA is an 80's progressive synth pop band, consisting of Paul Ortiz, Dan Tompkins (

Tesseract In geometry, a tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of six square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of ei ...

, White Moth Black Butterfly, formerly

Skyharbor Skyharbor is an Indian/American progressive metal band with members from New Delhi and Mumbai, India; and Cleveland, Ohio, US. History The band was initially guitarist Keshav Dhar's studio project, before TesseracT vocalist Daniel Tompk ...

) and Katie Jackson. All songs are produced, mixed and edited by the trio, with Tompkins performing the vocals.

Freelance compositions

Ortiz has also written music for use in the Ambient Metal Constructions series. The series consists of three Producer Loops sample packs, sold by the audio production company Prime Loops. He has also been cited offering music composition services for anything from theatre and dance projects, to television and multimedia ventures, with an aim to write music for video games and small films.

Equipment

Ortiz uses Ibanez 7 and 8 string guitars and Line 6 POD digital amp modelling units both in the studio and live. He uses Propellerhead Reason as his main DAW for recording.

Discography

As Chimp Spanner

References

External links

Chimp Spanner on TwitchChimp Spanner on MyspaceChimp Spanner on SoundclickBlessed Inertia on MyspaceChimp Spanner - All Roads Lead Here on BandcampZETA on Bandcamp
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ortiz, Paul English heavy metal guitarists English multi-instrumentalists Living people Djent Progressive metal guitarists Seven-string guitarists Eight-string guitarists 1984 births