Artist History Born 26.11.75 in London, Noel Maurice (aka Idiotchild) spent his childhood in Johannesburg, South Africa. He began to play guitar at the age of ten, initially heavily influenced by African tribal music. In his late teens Noel relocated to Berlin, Germany. He began perfoming in the Berlin underground music scene, experimenting with various styles and line-ups including acoustic guitars, Casio keyboards , broken drum computers and teachest basses. Through experimentation and exploration he slowly came to define what would become initially the Idiotchild sound, greatly influenced by the lo-fi recording and performing techniques of Tom Waits, Beck and others working in this vein. In ‘97 he met up with singer Mercedes December and they began performing as Idiotchild and the Butterfly Gang. Working with various backing musicians they spent the next couple of years playing venues in and around Berlin. In January ‘98 they released their first independent EP, produced by Paul Lucas (Element of Crime). In April ‘98 they won the Brandenburg Unsigned Bands Competition and consequently appeared on Berlin television the following June. In early ‘99 they took a break from performing to re-assess their sound and direction, beginning to work with computers while retaining their lo-fi, improvisational style of writing. A demo recording they produced at this time attracted interest from New York producer Konrad Kinard and in January 2000 Noel and Mercedes began work on a second EP with Kinard. They recorded initially in Berlin before finishing and mixing the EP in Kinard’s Brixton Studios in London in spring and summer of the same year. They remained based in London until mid-2001, performing in venues in London and Brighton with Mercedes now playing bass and keyboards, and developing new material. They then relocated back to Berlin and are currently performing in venues around the city with new addition, electro-artist Mr E. At present they arethe featured alternative artist on the Tunebandit.com website and are in the MP3.COM Alternative Indie German Top 10 and European Top 30. A new EP, ‘Writhe’, comes out on Sleepwalk Discs on December 14th 2001.

Location Berlin, Mitte - Germany

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