|
 Profile:
Stephen
was born in Edinburgh in 1972 and has a long history of
involvement in electronic music. He started listening to the
original electro sound of the early eighties while
breakdancing. His inspiration to make music comes from
artist like Bobby Orlando, Heaven 17 and early Human League.
Then in 1988 Stephen discovered House music at the Hoochie
Coochie Club in Edinburgh. Local DJ Yogi Haughton would play
anything from jazz to the first early Chicago and Detroit
releases. It was these records that converted him from a
music listener to a music maker. He started playing live
with Roland drum machines and basslines emulating the acid
sound of Chicago under the name of MD3 and would continue to
do this for another two years.
Stephen recalls when things started to get out of control
around the early nineties. A time when real Detroit techno
and Chicago house music was hard to find and Rave music was
on the increase. After numerous live shows throughout
1989/1991, Stephen retired to his bedroom to make music for
the next three years. He spent his time wisely perfecting a
sound that is uniquely his. All this paid of in 1995 when
Stephen released his first EP on Djax up Beats (Holland).
Label owner and DJ Saskia Slegers liked Stephens’s music so
much that his first release would be an album. Stephen
stayed loyal to the label and covered 8 releases between
1995 to 2000.
Soon after the first Djax releases Stephen was recording for
other labels such as Soma, T&B, Drought, Scandinavia, to
name a few. Stephen released an EP under the name Earl Brown
called the cornucopia EP in 1996, the lead track “how I
feel” made number 20 in Music magazines top 100 of 1996,
where his talent was compared to that of Chicago innovator
LIL’ LOUIS. Not a bad achievement for his second release.
Around the same time he contributed a track to Glasgow’s
label Soma under the same name Earl Brown for their 50th
release. He also collaborated with Envoy for two trax on his
album Shoulder to shoulder.
Stephen decided to start his own label in 2000 called
Realtime Records. The purpose of this project was to release
all his own material that had been rejected from other
labels. The reason was because Stephen believed they had
missed something. After five very successful releases
Stephen decided to put the label on hold.
All his early releases were getting Stephen a lot of
attention so he started playing in the clubs again mostly
playing live sets. Enjoying playing in Belgium, Germany,
France, Copenhagen, and Oslo he would always return to play
at his local club PURE in Edinburgh.
Here Stephen’s career would take another turning point when
he was playing live before Derrick May one night. As soon as
Derrick entered the club he approached Stephen to talk to
him about his music. This was the beginning of a friendship
that still lasts today. A deal was struck after long
negotiations and Stephen released two EPs on the Legendary
Detroit label Transmat in 2002.
Recently Stephen approached DJ Bone after purchasing the
first release on Subject Detroit and the conversation led to
him contributing trax for Bones mix CD. Soon after he was
given the opportunity to record an EP called Subject
Scotland as part of the Subject Detroit global series.
Stephen’s inspiration lies firmly in Detroit techno, his
releases and live performances are proof of this. He chooses
to give his music to labels that he respects, rather than
make a certain style of music for a particular type of
label. “That for me is fashion and music is not fashion
Music is Music”.
Future projects include a new EP on Transmat. A remix for
Mark Williams and to work with Mark on a joint release.
Material for Arne Weinberg and Paul Mac should be available
this year. To stay loyal to the subject family and release
more material through Subject Detroit. |
