Artist description Solo dance music artist focusing on original music with strong beats. Also remixer happy to work on any track from any genre of music.

Music Style Ambient, Chillout, Breakbeat

Musical Influences The Prodigy, Leftfield, Orbital, Goldie, U2, Dubstar, Portishead, Massive Attack, The Shamen

Similar Artists Leftfield, The Shamen, The Prodigy

Artist History Writing and producing music for 14 years, starting on a basic computer sample based setup and slowly saving enough cash to get decent equipment. Height of recognition - Quarter finals of Sony Dance Music Competition 1993! (Woo!) Only recently began to do any promotion work outside of my peers and have already secured a deal with MTV for use of 'The Piece' on The Real World

Group Members Stuart Elding

Instruments Apple Mac G3 running Cubase v4, M-Audio Delta 44 Soundcard, Yamaha UX256, Roland XP-60, Emu X-Treme Lead Turbo, Yamaha CS2x, Akai S2000, Behringer MX2642, Behringer MDX2200, Zoom 1204, SPL Vitalizer

Albums Unknown melodies, TV Tunes

Press Reviews The Drum n Bass scene has reached a point where many of the best innovations are coming from artists who are not dedicated to the scene but rather general electronic artists dabbling around in the mysterious world of ‘broken beats’. Desire, by U.K. sound smith Empathy is just such a track. Billing his work as “Dance Music with Originality”, the artist starts with an intro that could have just as well been a part of any suspense movie soundtrack. After nearly a minute, some deep chopped breaks are dropped in the mix and soon blossom into a full breakbeat. The plucked strings and cinematic chord patterns that introduced the song are then joined by (and eventually give way) to a deep, winding analog bass that doesn’t rasp so much as saturate the sounds cape. Just when you think the track is going to turn into a full-throttle dance-floor killer, Empathy eases on the drums, swinging the entire track in a more contemplative direction … and just when you get comfortable with that … well you get the picture. The recording is fairly clean and sequencing is meticulous. The mixing seemed a little bass-heavy, to the point where a lot of the mid-range seemed suffer. It was kind of like listening to a regular CD after your ears have popped from changing altitude. Granted, the bass was essential to what the Empathy trying to emphasize but sometimes artists have to trust the integrity of their original sounds and the listener’s equipment to get the proper accentuation. On a balanced system this track sounds like it was ruined by a bad EQ job. Other than that there are virtually no technical quibbles to be had. Desire is a classic stop-and-go track that has moderate potential as both a movie score and a dance floor track (if squeezed between two uncompromising 2-step tracks – I’d actually like to hear Andy C or a similar DJ attempt to do this). Drum n Bass fans starved for something out of the ordinary might want to check this one out. - Greg McLaughlin (Assistant editor for Gods of Music) On first listen, this track sounds like just about any of the innumerable DJ records built for mixing into a set at a club. It's the words that really grab me and make this track worth a repeated listening. Call me a sucker for philosophy, but a good song should make you think, and this song does. Unfortunately, it's as if the song wants to be a big epic trance song but doesn't quite get there. Right where it ends is where I think it should really begin - as the vocal echoes out would be a great place to drop a huge hit and go into some amazing sonic lead.. but as it stands, there's not much to this song. The production is good, the bass is phat, and the beats actually do more than just 1-2-3-4 then loop, but there isn't really a hook in it that makes me want to gush about how amazing it is. There is definate potential here, but it never quite makes it where it wants to go. Or maybe it's where _I_ want it to go. In either case, there isn't really much to distinguish it from the masses of white labels and generic beat plates that fill record bags everywhere beside the vocal, and for this reason I can't really give it a really high score. It's not bad, but not great. However, at Empathy's defense, I have listened to a couple of his other songs ("Morning" for one) and it is clear that the artist does have definate talent... I just think he needs to work on giving the songs a real purpose, a hook, something that will make it stand out in the minds of his listeners and make it distinguishable from the rest of the records floating around out there. Definately mixable and spinnable but not quite the peak-of-the-set-mixable either. I could take it or leave it, as far as this song is concerned, but I know I will be back to hear what he's up to in the future. - J. Bethell for GodsOfMusic.com At last - an artist who understands that dance music and musical composition are not mutually exclusive arts! Folks, this is a refreshing, refreshing find - even my intense dislike of a few aspects of this song cannot prevent me from endorsing this artist's work. So many things are dead on. The engineering is magnificent - clean and clear, with just the right amount of air. The sounds are punchy and deep, but rarely are in your face. This is an electronic track with a deep sense of style, combining the best elements of breakbeats, house grooves, and acid jazz into a whole new thing. The composition and performance are superb. This is a well-written song in any genre, but in the dance music genre this is nearly a magnum opus. The structure is very sound, perfectly balanced, and even includes (gasp) a piano solo! When is the last time you heard a dance tune that actually had a musician PLAYING an instrument? Mind boggling. This is a great fusion, folks, one you have to check out. Overall, this is a very interesting track by an intriguing artist. The track is not perfect, but it is absolutely worth a listen, and perhaps even a download. I'm definitely going to check out the artist's other work. - Darrell Wade Burgan for GodsofMusic.com

Additional Info Also work as collaborator on briX

Location Boston, Lincolnshire - United Kingdom

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