Ed Solo (born Ed Bickley) is a British
disc jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...
and
record producer
A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...
of
electronic dance music
Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and List of electronic dance music festivals, festivals. It is generally ...
. He has worked with artists including
Blak Twang,
Deekline, MC Det,
Fatboy Slim
Norman Quentin Cook (born Quentin Leo Cook, 31 July 1963), also known as Fatboy Slim, is an English musician and DJ who helped popularise the big beat genre in the 1990s. His music makes extensive use of Sampling (music), samples from eclectic ...
,
Roots Manuva
Rodney Hylton Smith, better known by his stage name Roots Manuva (born 9 September 1972), is a British rapper and producer. Since his debut in 1994, he has produced numerous albums and singles on the label Big Dada, achieving commercial succ ...
,
Shy FX, DJ Swift, DJ Trace and
Elisabeth Troy
Elisabeth Troy Antwi is a British singer and songwriter.
She appeared on several top 40 hit singles in the UK, including MJ Cole's " Crazy Love" and "Hold On to Me" in 2000 and B.Traits' "Fever" in 2012.David Jhonson Roberts ''British Hit Singl ...
.
Career
Solo's first releases were "125th Street" and "The Danger", co-produced with label boss Dave. Solo and Stone went under the name Click and Cycle.
In 1997, he moved to
Brighton
Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...
and set up a studio with Stone. Solo started working with DJ Brockie and the pair made "Reprasent", Undiluted's first release, which reached number one on all the
drum-and-bass charts. Brockie and Solo continued to make more songs, including "Turntable 1", "Echo Box" (on the True Playaz label) and "System Check".
Solo became involved in the
nu skool breaks
Nu skool breaks or nu breaks is a subgenre of breakbeat originating during the period between 1998 and 2002. The style is usually characterized by more abstract, more technical sounds, sometimes incorporated from other genres of electronic dance m ...
in 2005; his studio was located above
Krafty Kuts's old record shop. He then began working with Krafty Kuts and later the pair began co-producing music together on Krafty Kut's album ''Freakshow'' (2006). Within Nu Skool Breaks, Solo has also collaborated with musicians including Deekline, Darrison, Skool of Thought, as well as mixing down tunes for
breakbeat
Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that uses drum breaks, often sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as Florida breaks, hip-hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat ...
artists including
Freq Nasty and Splitloop.
In 2007 Solo collaborated with Skool of Thought to release the underground dance album ''Random Acts of Kindness'', which, in a 4* review in
DMC World, was said to feature a "raging party-starting mentality".
Between 2008 and 2010, Solo had been making
dubstep
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken ...
music such as the anthemic "Age of Dub", which was released on Sludge, a label he established with Deekline. Throughout the 2010s he released Jungle music with Deekline on their label Jungle Cakes.
He is also involved in a project, BattleJam, with British
DMC champ 2007 "JFB" and UK
beatbox champ "Beardyman" which involves live beatbox,
sampling,
looping,
video scratching as well as crowd-sampling interaction.
Discography
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solo, Ed
Year of birth missing (living people)
Place of birth missing (living people)
20th-century births
British beatboxers
English electronic dance music DJs
English record producers
English drum and bass musicians
Dubstep musicians
Living people
DJs from Brighton and Hove
Musicians from Brighton