UFO!

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Producing and performing for nearly two decades, UFO! continues to edge forward, staking a position on the outward perimeter of music. UFO! is not an artist bound by inertia. Though widely regarded as one of the US's pioneering drum 'n base artists and DJs, UFO! has reinvented himself as a musician yet again, rising from the miasma of an ever-mutating underground dance-music scene.



A San Francisco native, UFO!—born Edwin Garro—was musically baptized by hip hop in the late '80s and early '90s. Mixing and scratching alongside fellow DJs QBert, Shortcut, Quest, and D-Stylz, UFO! quickly ascended to the ranks of battle DJ. Next, Edwin found himself enthralled with the new urban sounds of London: hardcore, jungle, and drum 'n base. Here he saw a portal into the future, wider than any before. He stepped through, and soon after formed San Francisco's Phunckateck crew in 1996, performing alongside frontrunners such as Goldie , Photek, Roni Size and Dieselboy at the collective's seminal weekly events. He released more than two dozen singles on labels such as Thermal, Position Chrome, Phylum, Vortex, Commercial Suicide, Green, and Phunckateck Communications. He also released his first album, The Future Is Listening, on Thermal in 2001, one of the first full-length albums produced by an American drum 'n bass artist.



A move to New York in 2000 brought UFO! to new musical terrains. Not content to ride on his past rep in drum 'n base, he began to delve into the nocturnal activities of the New York electro, new wave and dark wave scenes. During his time on the east coast, UFO! saw several of his productions featured in new media forums, including MTV and the hit TV series, CSI:NY. After returning to San Francisco, UFO! released Logic Is Lunacy on Sanguine Recordings in 2007. The album marked his first venture into the 4/4 format, and his first time recording as a vocalist. While retaining his signature love of hard, loud distortion and meticulous sound design, Logic Is Lunacy traced a new arc across genres, from low-end techno to shattered electro-ballads to hook-laden synth rock.



In recent years, UFO! has shuttled back and forth between east and west coasts, birthing new artistic projects with increasing frequency. He formed Almost Human with his old drum 'n base cohort Alex Posell,(DJ Abstract) and currently collaborates with vocalist Kimi Recor as Eskimobot. He also became involved in the growth of Sanguine Records, stepping in as head of A&R for the label in 2008. In 2009, UFO! released a follow-up EP, The Mission, which marks an exciting move back into dance-floor territory. Where Logic Is Lunacy showed UFO! at his most introspective, The Mission delivers the sounds of pure mischief and revelry. Rife with sirens and old-school Phunckateck drum fills, The Mission is a three-track base banger that draws inspiration from what UFO! describes as, "Klingons bangin' the walls of their own spaceships, blasting lazers and photon blasters at full warp speed, beam me up Scottie I control your body I'm as deadly as SARS when it comes to shockin' the party".HA!.



UFO!'s world is one where music, painting, graffiti, photography, and DJing are not easily separated. Championing an idiosyncratic form of urban futurism, his work in all forms is defiantly rooted in the industrial shadows of San Francisco bridges and New York high rises, honed by the warrens of London's Tube and the mechanistic biology of Los Angeles' concrete arteries and veins. UFO!'s art rides these intersections with committed abandon, joyriding through the crumbling detritus of an industrialized society colonized by data and information—a place where the man is no longer easily distinct from the machine.



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