“Ambitious, visionary and ultimately gorgeous.|Charlie North is the Gods’ nectar of ambient music.”|Nick Luscombe, Flo- Motion, London’s 104.9 Xfm Charlie North creates music, film, and multimedia projects from his studio set in the heart of the English countryside. He uses generative techniques, custom built software, and traditional tools to create rich ambient sounds, original visuals, and ambitious multimedia that have earned him a loyal, worldwide fan base. Raised in Yorkshire, Charlie grew up surrounded by music. He started playing in bands and performing at concerts from an early age. A chance meeting with a record producer meant that he pressed his first record at the age of 11. “We sold the record to the other kids at school, it taught me a great deal and showed me that there’s a lot more to the music business than just making music” notes Charlie. After school (and armed with two diplomas in sound engineering) Charlie took up residence as studio manager with the influential dance label UDG. Based in Leeds (and distributed via Eastern Bloc) this extremely successful time saw the label release a series of highly influential underground hits. Tracks such as ‘On Your Todd’ and ‘Freebase’ would go on to receive critical acclaim from both the underground and mainstream music press. He has worked in some of London’s best-known recording studios, engineering and producing at Abbey Road and Mixdown studios. He was also lucky enough to be one of last musicians to ever perform live at the original Marquee Club. In 2003 Charlie graduated from the University of Greenwich with a First Class Honors degree in Multimedia Technology. After graduation he worked with organisations such as the BBC, Sony and Nintendo. In 2004 he developed the online computer game ‘Hackers’, and directed the short film ‘Hungry Ghosts’. By 2005 Charlie wanted to travel and develop his music, but it wasn’t until a compulsory purchase order on his North London flat that he put the idea into practice. “Working with computers can give recordings a cold, digital quality. I’m always searching for sounds and performances that can introduce a warmth and emotion into my music.” He therefore seized the opportunity, packed his laptop and started on a journey to New Zealand, via America, and back through Europe. This journey resulted in his first album Find Your Own Space being released in 2006. It is a chilled mix of world music, down tempo grooves, and imaginative production, drawing on a diverse blend of influences including tribal beats, techno, ambient, Arabic, and dance. During 2007 Charlie started experimenting with generative music systems. He began to code Artificially Intelligent music programs and experiment with the whole recording process. Charlie says he “started to arrange and code a variety of different rules for the computer” and after a while found that he could “press play and never quite know what would happen”. He goes on to say that “I found I could jam with the computer and add new ideas into the mix, in turn the computer would react to what I did.” Key elements from this period would later form the basis for his second studio album The Spaces In Between. Released in 2008 it would later be described by Digital Chill as “a collection of exotic, atmospheric textures, weaving and twisting over wide angle production values”. As well as promoting his new work Charlie is currently expanding his distinctive style into the world of film, Web TV and computer games. He is also currently in demand remixing, DJing, and producing a variety of musical projects. |
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