BOA Radio Show 011 | Steve Stoll
Owner of techno labels Proper NYC and 212 productions, Steve began his musical life as a drummer at the age of 10 and in the late 80's was playing drums and programming with the Chicago Wax Trax! band Sister Machine Gun. After a stint with them he realized that pure electronic music had far more potential to me than the confines of being a back-up musician and he began composing minimalistic but hard electronic tracks on a small cassette 4 track recorder with a simple analog set-up on the floor of his apartment on 18th Street.
Steve's first solo record 'Datacloud' was released on Richie Hawtin's Probe label in 1993 and things just snowballed from there. 'I recorded for many other labels including Novamute, Profile, Fax, Djax, Musicman and Synewave to name a few but my proudest moment was when I started my own label Proper NYC and became my own boss. Early on I had always wanted to be different, not be just another DJ, so instead of spinning vinyl I performed live PA's bringing my studio on tour and improvising new sets every night. I truly felt like things could blow up every time i took the stage (and they did sometimes!) but looking back this added very much excitement to the performances (at least for me :-)'
Steve had the pleasure of playing for crowds all over the world from Europe to Asia at some of the biggest clubs and festivals including I Love Techno, Fuse, Omen, Cocoon, Tresor, Mayday, Love Parade, 10 Days of Techno, Mt. Fuji to name a few. Several years ago he got the chance to create a project together with my hero Patrick Codenys from Front 242 under the guise 'Gaiden'. He has also worked on projects together with Ken Ishii, Damon Wild, Pete Namlook and remixed the likes of Gary Numan, DJ Rush, Hardfloor, to name a few.
'These days I still produce albeit a slower output than the glory days of techno. I also produce sample libraries for Big Fish Audio (my 'Locked Groove' project was selected as a top 10 by Future Music Magazine). I am interested in anything that expands the theory and execution of electronic music and media. I love circuit bending as much as I love analog synthesis.'