cello , keyboards, pick ups and synthesisers

My background in music isn't what you might expect for a deejay and producer of what might loosely be called electronic music. At school I was a dedicated cellist who passed Grade VIII practical and played in a Youth Orchestra, performing at several festivals of Youth music around Europe. However, I was simultaneously fascinated with leftfield music and grabbed every chance I could to experiment with 4 track tape recorders, drum machines, guitars and FX boxes and try and unlock their potential as the highly innovative creative tools I knew they could be.

My first real experience in a proper recording studio was writing and recording cello parts for a record that a friend was doing for cult Bristol-based indie label Sarah Records. It was reviewed in the NME and played on the John Peel Show and I was very briefly the most fulfilled 6th former alive!

At art school in Glasgow, fuelled by a growing interest in hip hop, dub reggae and house music, I became friends with another artist and musician, Daniel Ibbotson. With a couple of synthesisers and an old Atari, we programmed and recorded some idiosyncratic, electronic music, some of which eventually saw the light of day on a compilation album for Tony Thorpe's Language Records.

This creative encounter really kick-started my own particular style of writing and recording, and throwing caution and a student loan to the wind I bought an AKAI sampler and started to piece together tracks of my own. In 1998, Glaswegian deejay and club promoter Paul Cawley hooked up with Soma Records and launched Fenetik Music with the intention of releasing the kind of leftfield dance music that had it's own style but just didn't fit in anywhere else. My demos were some of the first to be signed to the label, under the name Sidewinder.

With the release of Fenetik Music's first compilation in 1999, deejays around the world started to pay attention to the unique Fenetik sound. My track Stanway's Revenge was noticed by Groove Armada and was licensed to their hugely popular All Back To Mine mix album for DMC. Over the last 3 years it has appeared on numerous albums in Europe and the US - including 3 this year alone. Since 1998 I have recorded 3 singles for, each one a more considered step forward from the last. And over the last 2 years I've been writing and recording an album that has been an even bigger development in my sound and style. Where my earlier recordings were made entirely from fragments of all manner of different records, carefully edited together with the aid of a sampler and sequencer, the album is almost entirely original and features a host of musicians who I wrote for and collaborated with. It will be released early next year by Fenetik Music.

As well as deejaying in assorted clubs and back rooms in Glasgow and beyond, I had always intended to try and play my music live, although this is a bit of a misnomer when you make music predominantly with a sampler. In 2000 I did a series of gigs in Glasgow, Eindhoven and London, firstly with just myself and a sampler, and then adding percussion and keys. Earlier this year I played an improvised gig that combined sampler and keyboards with live percussion, flute/sax and vocals. We aim to repeat this exciting experiment to promote the album next year.

Outside of music I have also worked in radio and TV as a researcher on a wide variety of programmes from comedy and light entertainment to music and documentary.

When Beat106 were granted a commercial license in Scotland in 1999, I successfully pitched the idea to produce a weekly, underground dance music show hosted by Stuart Mcmillan and Orde Meikle (aka Slam). The show ran on Friday nights for 10 months until the station was bought by Capitol Radio and we no longer fitted in with the station's absolutely commercial ethos.

At about the same time, I worked as the researcher on comedy series Next Stop Phil Kay! for UK Play and briefly as one of the researchers on Radio Scotland's Fred Macauley Show. Since then I've worked for Blackwatch productions on 'Luv Bytes', a documentary about how fetishists use the internet to inform and express their particular interest, and for Wark Clements on 'Beat The Streets', a quirky game show for BBC2 Scotland.

Discography

SINGLES: (all for FENETIK MUSIC)

SIDEWINDER / TROUBLED TIMES EP / FENETIK MUSIC TIK003 (Jan 1999)

THE WORD IN THE SOUND SAMPLER - featuring SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE and
THE WAITING IS OVER (Daniel Ibbotson remix) SOMA CD16S (Aug1999)

SIDEWINDER / FLIGHT EP TIK007 (May 2000)

FENETIK REMIX EP vol. 1 featuring SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE (remixes by
JIMPSTER and LIGHT SLEEPERS) TIK008 (Aug 2000)

LIGHT SLEEPERS / LIGHT SLEEPERS EP TIK010 (Jun 2001)

SIDEWINDER - MY SOUND WORLD CD/LP (cat no & release date TBC)

REMIXES:

DANIEL IBBOTSON / DEPART (SIDEWINDER REMIX) / GLASGOW UNDERGROUND (April
1999)

UNIVERSAL PRINCIPALS / FLYIN' HIGH (SIDEWINDER RE-WORK) / SOMA (July 2000)

GUIRO featuring KRIMINAL / RHYTHM REVOLUTION (SIDEWINDER REMIX) / SOLE MUSIC
(July 2002)

COMPILATIONS & LICENSING - with WWW links:

MISCELLANEOUS THE 2ND COMPILATION/LANGUAGE RECORDS-CRAMMED DISCS (1996) UK
SKEW AND WRAP - WHY WE FEEL SO UNCOMFORTABLE ABOUT THE FUTURE (with Daniel
Ibbotson)

http://www.crammed.be/language/misc2pg1.htm

FENETIK MUSIC COMPILATION 1: THE WORD IN THE SOUND. (featuring 7 tracks by
SIDEWINDER) SOMA/FENETIK MUSIC SOMACD16 (1999) UK

GROOVE ARMADA present 'ALL BACK TO MINE' / DMC (2000) UK
SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE
http://www.dmcworld.com/backtomine/groovearmada.asp

CODA CHROMES CHAPTER ONE / DISTANCE (2000) France
SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE

NAKED MUSIC PRESENTS CARTE BLANCHE VOL. 1 / NAKED MUSIC (2000) US
SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE
http://www.astralwerks.com/naked/carteblanche_1.html

MANDARIN CHINESE CHILLING THRILLS/UNIVERSAL JAZZ (2000) Germany
SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE
http://www.the-chinese.de/

SOMA COMPILATION 7 / SOMA (2000) UK
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPALS / FLYIN¹ HIGH (SIDEWINDER MIX)

NL / ID&T MUSIC - CINQ ETOILES (2000) Holland
UNIVERSAL PRINCIPALS / FLYIN¹ HIGH (SIDEWINDER MIX)
http://www.cinq-etoiles.com/nllate.htm

NAKED MUSIC PRESENTS CARTE BLANCHE VOL. 2 / NAKED MUSIC (2001) US
SIDEWINDER-FLIGHT
SIDEWINDER-AFRO LIFE
http://www.astralwerks.com/naked/carteblanche_2.html

HIGH FIDELITY LOUNGE VOLUME 3 / GUIDANCE RECORDS (2001) US
SIDEWINDER-PLAIN SONG
http://www.33rpm.com/release_detail.lasso?R=142

EL CIELO CAFÉ ZUB RECORDINGS (2001) SPAIN
SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE (LIGHT SLEEPERS REMIX)

FENETIK MUSIC COMPILATION 2: THE SOUNDS OF MUSIC (featuring tracks by
SIDEWINDER & LIGHT SLEEPERS) SOMA/FENETIK MUSIC SOMACD26 (2002) UK
http://www.somarecords.com/fenetik

STA APÓLONIA - SOUL STATION / MUSICA ALTERNATIVA (2002) PORTUGAL
SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE
http://www.musicaalternativa.com/sta_apolonia_soul.htm - THIS SITE IS IN
PORTUGUESE!

FAT CITY PRESENTS OESTARS ON 33¹ compiled by AIM / FAT CITY RECORDS (2002)
UK
SIDEWINDER-INTERLUDE 12

SEVEN magazine and RIZLA present OESIZZLER¹ cover mount CD September 2002
issue.
SIDEWINDER-STANWAYS REVENGE