The pair first met in 1987, both living in and around the Blackbird Leys estate in Oxford, England and brought together through a mutual love of hip-hop and school girls. Greenhalgh was the first into the studio, with “Freestyle Fanatic” launching his career in 1991. However it was the establishment of the Legend imprint and specifically Greenhalghs “Champion Sound”, which really took their profile above and beyond the slew of anonymous white labels that were dominating the music at the time. In 1994, the pair started recording together under the name Funky Technicians, with “Got to Believe” the first in a series of records which pushed the label away from the fizzling darkside movement and more towards the epic string sections and rolling beats which started to appear on labels like Basement, Lucky Spin and Good Looking. After six years of recording singles for Legend and others, the pair established the CIA label and changed their name to the now familiar Total Science guise in the closing months of 1997, with the help of Brillo from Timeless. The release of their Silent Reign EP for Goldie’s Metalheadz breathed a new lease of life into the project, and the pair achieved a further boost with a well-timed Bad Company remix of “Champion Sound” which conjured further interest in what they were doing with their own label. Their debut album Advance exposed a further field of interest, with down-tempo experiments logged as a series of “Breaks” on the majority of their early EP’s extended to some superb deep house, this breadth was taken a step further with their Skin Deep imprint which has forged broken beat to considerable acclaim. The pairs pioneering of a revival in old-school sounds and arrangements, together with Digital and Reinforced, dominated drum & bass throughout 2001. After this followed releases on high-profile labels such as 31 Records, True Playaz, Reinforced and Soul:r. 2000 saw the founding of CIAs sister label Advanced, created as a means to keep up with the high level of production output from the duo and their confederates, for which one label was no longer enough. Following from this came the renowned Sektor series on Advanced. Initially created as a way of combining up-and coming artists with those more established, the series was also developed as a means to stress the importance more on the music than the artists. Featuring artists such as Baron, Digital, D.kay, Lee, Juju, Beta 2 and Klute, the Sektor series included seminal tracks such as Squash, and the ever popular Champion Sound remix. During 2003 the pair spent a significant part of the year promoting their music to all parts of the world, touring the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Europe & Brazil. During this year CIA and Advanced became more focused on showcasing other artists and nurturing the profile of then-up-and-coming producers such as Beta 2, Zero Tolerance, Friction, Mathematics and Baron-whose remix of Total Science’s Nosher became without a doubt one of the year’s biggest dancefloor stormers, pioneering the jump-up resurgence of 2003. 2004 begins with a new studio set up, allowing the duo to up the ante on output and quality, with releases on CIA & Advanced, including No. 1 Sound, A.C.I & Voices and a return to Metalheadz with Defcom 69/Loose Ends. In the true Total Science fashion of never binding oneself to one particular musical form, liquid-style releases are also due out on Creative Source & Defunked. Further into the year there are plans for a re-launch of the currently dormant Skin Deep imprint, a hip-hop/modern soul album (currently in production) planned for release later in the year and several other projects in the works. With such a vast array of styles and concepts originated by Total Science over the past ten years, one can only guess what the future holds for this highly talented duo, except to say that surprises will always be expected! |
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