Born in the 70s in the North of France, Tyler Smith aka Black Smith Craft discovered acid house at the end of the 80’s. Seduced & consumed by electronic music he fell in love (like many of us did) with the German melodic trance style of labels such as Eye-Q, Platipus & Superstition. By the late 90s he’d started dj’ing and by the turn of the new millenium his tastes had developed into a more underground techno sound influenced by English, German and especially American (Detroit) sounds.  His radio career kicked off in earnest with Tyler appearing regularly on “Tuesday Session” show broadcast on Campus FM (Villeneuve d’Ascq/France) which was run by Dimitri Pike (Mirage/Matrix/Subject Detroit).

Around this time he started producing his own music and the Alphaground website was born. By 2004 Tyler was a regular on many key dance stations in France and Holland and in 2006 (with Erell Ranson & Pedro Cali) he launched the “Interstate 94” show for Livesets.com dedicated to the sound of Detroit, which was quickly followed by the B-side show which showcased the darker, offbeat & industrial sounds. Tyler’s now managing different shows playing Detroit and Birmingham tunes on Livesets, Emergence FM (Limoges/France) and Techno.fm (Montréal/Québec) radios.

2006 saw Tyler’s debut vinyl release – a collaboration with Bionic on German label Audiocrash which was quickly followed by several digital releases. Over the years Tyler’s sound has become darker & more industrial sounding which in turn has led to the birth of our favourite of his many projects  - Black Smith Craft – and with music released already and more on the way for labels including Grovskopa’s mighty Pohjola, Leeds’ finest Limetree and Rednox’s superb free netlabel Ante-Rasa the future is looking bright.

echocentrik