Information AboutBrian Transeau |
Brian Wayne Transeau (born October 4 , 1971 in Rockville , Maryland ) is an electronic Musician , better known by his stage name, '''BT'''. He has been called the "Father of Trance" for his pioneering in the trance genre Roland US Community Article , Peter Arnberg Article and "Prince of Dance Music" for his multi-instrumentalist skills Jive Magazine Review , and in recent years he has gained additional fame for producing Hollywood film scores. When recording with other artists, BT has used the aliases ''Kaistar'', ''Libra'', ''Dharma'', ''Prana'', ''Elastic Reality'', ''Elastic Chakra'', and ''GTB''. BT is known in production circles for his signature technique, the stutter edit, also known as the BT stutter Keyboard Magazine Article http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/bt/. This technique consists of taking a small sample of a sound and then repeating it in a musical as well as mathematical way. EARLY YEARS Transeau showed an early interest in music, playing the piano from the age of two LA City Beat . As an adolescent, he heard electronic music such as New Order, Depeche Mode and began to love it. He attended Berklee College Of Music in Boston, Massachusetts for one year before dropping out and moving to Los Angeles, California . MUSIC CAREER BT moved back to the Washington, DC area where he grew up and collaborated there with his friends Ali and Sharam of Deep Dish in the early 1990s. Transeau's productions were not popular in the United States , and he had no idea that he had become a sensation across the Atlantic, where UK DJs like Sasha and Paul Oakenfold were regularly spinning his music to the delight of crowds. Sasha bought Transeau a ticket to London, where BT witnessed his own massive success; several thousand clubbers responded enthusiastically when Sasha played his song Remix Magazine . He was soon signed to Oakenfold's record label. In the early years of BT's career (roughly 1995 - 2000 ), he pioneered the trance genre, which was less hyper and more soothing than most other types of dance music. Despite the fact that he is not truly a DJ and doesn't claim to behttp://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2004/10/02/the_world_at_his_fingertips/?page=2, BT has often appeared on the lists of the world's top DJs. In 2006, he ranked 73rd on DJ Mag's Top 100 DJ list. In 2005, he ranked 82nd DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs 2005 , up from 92 in 2004 DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs 2004 . Additional rankings were 83rd in 2003 DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs 2003 and 76 in 2001. DJ Mag's Top 100 DJs 2001 BT has said of his musical background, "I'm not the traditional type of dance music artist. I'm not a DJ. I come from a classical music background. I attended the Berklee College of Music, and I played in punk bands." ''Ima'' Instantly popular, BT's 1996 album '' Ima '' helped shape the future of the burgeoning Progressive House scene as it merged with, and later came to define, the Trance Music style. Notable on ''Ima'' was a collaboration with singer/songwriter Tori Amos called " Blue Skies ", which was released as a single and subsequently rose to the top of the dance charts. The title, "Ima" ("今"), is the Japanese word for "now." ''ESCM'' While ''Ima'' was comprised solely of the "progressive" sound, 1997's '' ESCM '' was more experimental (although it still produced several big records for the electronic dance music scene). The album featured more complex melodies and more traditional harmonies along with a heavier use of vocals. The tone of the album is darker and less whimsical than '' Ima ''. The album, as a whole, is much more diverse than BT's debut album. The LP was a hit in England, Australia and Japan . ''Movement in Still Life'' BT released his 1999 album '' sang vocals on this track and others, with Kirsty Hawkshaw also making significant vocal contributions to "Running Down the Way Up" and "Dreaming". ''Emotional Technology'' The original versions of many tracks that were to be released on the followup to '' Movement In Still Life '' were stolen from BT's studio during a burglary around Christmas of 2001. $75,000 worth of equipment was stolen. The 11 lost tracks included collaborations with Sarah MacLachlan and Peter Gabriel which were never duplicated. The album that replaced the lost tracks was '' Emotional Technology '', released in 2003. It featured more vocal tracks than BT's previous fare, including six with vocals by BT himself. '' Emotional Technology '' was BT's least experimental album to date, and many consider it the "popiest" of all of his work. The big single from the album, '' Somnambulist '', draws heavily from the breakbeats and New Wave dance of New Order and Depeche Mode , whom BT has cited as major influences . The rest of the album fairly escapes genre labeling , from the dark guitar work of ''Circles'', to ''The Only Constant is Change'' which is reminiscent of ''Satellite'', the album blends genres and changes genres in mid-track . ''This Binary Universe'' BT's fifth studio album, '' This Binary Universe '', released in 2006, is his second studio album released in 5.1 surround sound, the first being the soundtrack to the motion picture '' Monster ''. The album features a mix of many genres, including jazz, breakbeats, and classical music. Three songs feature a full 110-piece orchestra. BT has said that the album has a lullaby-like quality, inspired by his daughter, Kaia, who sat on his lap throughout most of the song writing process. Animated videos were created to accompany each song BTs' Last FM site . The videos are included in a DVD packaged along with the CD. Keyboard Magazine declared of the album, “In a hundred years, it could well be studied as the first major electronic work of the new millennium.” Unlike his last two albums, which featured vocals on almost every track, this album contains none. The tracks also change genres constantly throughout. A good example is "The Antikythera Mechanism ", which starts off almost lullaby-like complete with a piano, acoustic guitars and reversed beats. Halfway through the track, the song explodes with a 110-piece orchestra, followed by a section of breakbeats and ending with the de-construction of the orchestra. An hour-long video interview with BT focusing on '' This Binary Universe '' is available on the DivX Stage6 BT channel . Through the months of November and December of 2006, BT toured the album with , 2006 - deviantART News. Images and accounts from the tour to date can be seen at dA Presents . The Stutter Edit as well as Break Tweaker are both software created by BT's company "Sonik Architects" and will be released sometime in 2007. A demonstration of the stutter edit can be seen in the posted interview above. See Granular_Synthesis COLLABORATIONS
Shortly after '' Movement In Still Life ,'' BT produced NSync's 'Pop'. With this song, one of NSync's biggest hits ever, he introduced his trademark stutter vocals to the masses http://www.jivemagazine.com/review.php?rid=320. An instrumental version can be heard/viewed here. BT provided vocals on the DJ Tiësto single "Love Comes Again"-- in exchange, Tiësto remixed BT's song from ''Emotional Technology'', "Force of Gravity." BT recently contributed vocals to Tiësto's track " Break My Fall ." Upcoming collaborations:
FILM SCORES In recent years, BT has moved into '' ( 2003 ) has received particular acclaim . He is now slated to work on a film titled '' The Possibility Of Fireflies '' which stars '' Kelly Preston '' and will be released in 2008 . Transeau has also done the score for video games ''Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas'' (2000), ''Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions'' (2002) and ''Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005'' (2004). BT has even ventured into television, creating the scores for the TV series ''Kevin Hill'' in 2004 and for ''Tommy Lee Goes To College'' for NBC in 2005. He also executive-produced the Tommy Lee series, the idea for which he actually developed and sold to NBC . LIVE PERFORMANCES Unlike many Trance artists, Transeau frequently performs his music live. In August 2000, he headlined the E-Pavilion at EndFest . For New Year's Eve 2001, he performed at a Los Angeles block party with Paul Oakenfold and Deep Dish MTV News Article . In 2004, he did a very popular "last night of summer" concert at BT Tower (named for British Telecom ). On August 6, 2006, BT performed at the Campus Bash for WWDC 2006, the last bash to actually be held at the Apple Inc. campus at 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino , California . On August 11, 2006 he performed the opening performance to a sold out show featuring DJ Tiësto at The Borgata in Atlantic City , New Jersey .http://www.theborgata.com/Main.cfm?Category_1=10000&Category_2=10200&ReleaseID=F8432DFB-C29B-0A4C-0E2E0A66E272BF77http://www.clubplanet.com/mailer/2006/08/borgata-0811/ BT in December 2006 toured in support of '' This Binary Universe '' in a dual-headliner tour with Thomas Dolby. SOFTWARE BT has written his own software called BreakTweaker for his latest album. He will be releasing it in 2007 under his software company, Sonik Architects. He plans to then come out with a line of tools and plugins specifically aimed at musicians and DJs, including his signature stutter edit Progressive Sounds . Both BreakTweaker and StutterEdit were initially scripted by BT at the command-line level during prototype development. He has a team of developers now working on delivering a feature-complete product leaving him free to focus on higher level architecture and development. In addition to his "BT Stutter" edit, BT's signature sound is also achieved by means of a method of sound manipulation called Granular Synthesis , where sounds are broken apart into tiny pieces and rearranged to create very chaotic and wild soundscapeshttp://music.ign.com/articles/637/637464p2.html. BT is one of the direct pioneers of time correction techniques http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_sonic_surgeon/index.html. Time correction is a method by which a producer takes a series of samples with random occurrence (such as rain) and time corrects each individual hit according to a rhythmic and mathematical grid, much like the BT stutter. The result is that the seemingly random pulses take on a rhythmic form as well as a developing pattern, but retain their chaotic and unpredictable character. Transeau has developed his own method of time-correcting which he calls "nano-correcting," which is correcting any note shorter than a 64th note. He is writing a book on stutter editing and time correcting and has included a chapter on nano-correcting. PERSONAL LIFE Transeau has implied on occasion that he is a fan of the television series South Park , despite being against watching television. In January 2007 , Transeau lost items valued at a total of US $150,000 http://www.btmusic.com/Brian_Transeau_Home_Robbery.pdf which included his personal computer containing the show display of 'This Binary Universe.' This is the second noted robbery which has befallen Transeau. In response to this, Transeau has posted a US$20,000 reward (or his equivalent time as a producer) for information leading to the recovery of his music, and on his website has noted attempts to create a non-profit community subscription service where individuals can record details in an attempt to help track future stolen goods. DISCOGRAPHY Albums
Singles and EPs
Compilations
Film appearances & scores
Remixes
Video game appearances and scores
Sample CDs
Aliases and Pseudonyms
SEE ALSO
REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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