Flows

LA TEKNO MUSIQUE DE PARTAGE
Acid Mental Tribe, le trio de folie!! 
Membre de Halte Terre Native Sound System

After a background in traditional piano training and progression onto the electronic organ during childhood, I got my first 16-bit computer aged 13 in the form of the Commodore Amiga 500.
Somebody gave me copies of Soundtracker software and the ST range of sample disks, and along with my best friend, we began making our own tunes. Then along came MED Sound Studio and we started really getting to grips with producing using just the Amiga and simple keyboards.

As our output grew and the next few years unfurled, so we created first Q-P-I Music (Quadrosonix Productions Inc), 'Headlong Recordings', and finally 'Unborn Records', all basically label names for our growing output of experimental, late 80's/early 90's rave-influenced tunes. I became CJ Shadow, making hardcore, techno and jungle style tracks, while CJ Trinity made remixes of more commercial sounding tunes like that of The Prodigy and laid-back house/techno stuff, and developed a more general electronica-like, ambient, trance-style sound.

By the time we left school in 1992, aged 16, we had produced well over twenty C90 cassette albums of material. The next year or so saw investment in our kit as we upgraded to Amiga 1200 computers, better synths, and for the first time the introduction of simple mixers and decent monitor speakers. The quantity of our output certainly reduced, but the quality significantly increased.

Though our paths in life diverged significantly at aged 17, we continued to produce an evolving sound, improving and honing our individual styles and incorporating our personal influences as jobs and money allowed investment in better software and hardware. By the time the internet was a thing and even before ADSL (broadband) I was releasing the best of our music on unsigned music websites like MP3.com. Uploading several hours of music on a dial-up connection, now that was fun :)

By the turn of the millenium we had our own website, unbornrecords.net, and ran it as our label and home online to promote our music. CJ Trinity's material was by now very much in the house/trance and dance remix genres, whilst mine was definitively a breakbeat-driven, jungle and drum&amp;bass sound, reflecting the scene I was busy raving in every weekend, and immersed in fanatically. We sold a few CD albums, got quite a lot of downloads and generally enjoyed what we did, but life got in the way of it ever becoming more than a hobby.

Though our music continued to increase in quality and get some serious attention from a few people in the right places, sadly by 2005 we both had so much going on in our separate lives and so little time for music production that the website fizzled out, and along with the demise of several of the unsigned artist sites we had our material on, our music basically fell off the edge of a cliff. CJ Trinity's unfinished but astonishingly good final album, 'Atmospheric Hi Trip', really showed how far and complete his particular dance sound had come. My last CJ Shadow album, entitled 'Kitchen For No Reason', was completed that year and actually reflects how complete and professional my DnB-based sound was becoming. Even today, everyone who hears it seems to agree that it truly is a crying shame that I never continued making music.

Since 2005 I remain infatuated with the Drum & Bass scene, keeping up with the massive online output and trends, going out whenever possible to the dances and just loving everything I'm hearing and seeing. Recent months have seen me going through the old hard drives, listening to our old music, and a dawning realisation that I cannot allow this part of my life to die. And having now stumbled on a folder of projects and work from 2005 that basically constitutes what would have been my next album, I have decided to plug myself back into production.

2025 sees the 20th anniversary of the release of Kitchen For No Reason. I can confirm that a new LP is on its way, produced under my new Ignomius Darka moniker.

https://ignomius.com

Flows

MC Shabba D