CONTROLLED DECAY
DJ, Producer and live electronic dance music performer: Controlled Decay
makes DAW-less dance music against the worlds race to the bottom... getting ready to rave back to the top...
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Born out the of the ashes of a lost studio, 20 years later Controlled Decay is finally back up and producing with a focus on the live performance possibilities of everything he makes.
With their first release: TechnoFeudalism, Controlled Decay are out to demo what their live sound is like.
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Tracks that draws on the darkness of the economic, environmental and political turmoil we have all endured and the possibility and hope, that we can overturn it. A common theme through much of their output both in the past and in the future.
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Background :
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Controlled Decay aka DjcjD started DJ-ing in local pubs in his hometown of Glossop at age 17 playing eclectic sets of reggae, indie, psych, funk, dance, hip-hop... basically whatever came to mind.
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He was asked to open for Desmond Dekker when he played the towns Lift Global music Festival which remains a career highlight.
He then started putting on nights in the room above The Globe Inn in Glossop, initially starting a reggae/dancehall night that quickly branched into a dance night of eclectic genres under the banners of Treat Music and later Stop Making Sense.
These nights ran to great success for 15 or so years and he was instrumental in encouraging other budding DJs to take to the decks and cut their teeth and eventually start up other nights to reach greater audiences and feed the (locally starved) dance music scene.
He went to Salford University and studied TV and Radio Production and lived in Manchester for a decade.
In that time he was invited to DJ at several Club nights and Raves/ Free parties, whilst still returning to run the nights in Glossop.
He also ran a night at the Attic called RE:TREAT specialising in braindance and IDM. The night though popular was unfortunately short-lived.
He moved back to Glossop in 2009 and started working on a not for profit weekly live music night called Redroom, operating out of the Oakwood, Glossop, it was here he met his partner.
The night catered for all genres from blues/alt/folk /indie/reggae/ ska/ Avant Garde/electronics...
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He put on numerous festivals "The Redroom Riots" and over 200 gigs over a 4-year period , with the ethos being the gig should rarely cost more than a pint to enter, and as much money as possible going to the artists.
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Notably he brought the following artists:
Martin Christie of Electonic Music Open Mic
Kamal Arafa and the Moonlight Band
Johnny 5th wheel and the Cowards
Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam 6
. amongst many other extraordinary artists, to grace the tiny stage there.
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Whilst running Redroom he also started several DJ nights of various genres : a jungle/dnb and dubstep night called the “Scare-mouse Project” and a Reggae/ Dance Hall night called “Nice Up The Dance” and again helped encourage new talent to take to the decks, he also helped orchestrate an all queens DJ night called “Woman Is Eight” with an all-female line-up.
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Controlled Decay began as a musical project in 2000 and there are 4 albums of his electronic creation that existed, none of which he felt were perfect and were limited by his equipment and recording facilities at the time. In 2005 he lost the studio he built in a devastating burglary. He tried producing on a computer, but it lacked the tactile fun of his old analogue synth and groovebox set up, which had very much gone out of fashion and was almost impossible to replace in the new ableton based world of production.
For nearly two decades he gave up on producing. In 2021 he decided to rebuild a daw-less live set up. He started to obtain some new gear and slowly built a studio in his attic.
He spent a year relearning how to program and operate his new synths and drum machines and made a few songs he was happy with. He hadn’t intended to publish his music until he saw via the K2 labs guise the KLF were releasing some pills …
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LFO, Aphex Twin, KLF, 808 state, FSOL, Orbital are noted as some of his early influences and the likes of Daniel Avery, Martyn and Blawan amongst some of the modern beacons for his production...
but he also draws on an eclectic and incredibly diverse musical background and is a self proclaimed vinyl addict.​
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There's much more to come from this DJ and Producer who now in his 40's has been in the shadowy fringes of Manchester's music scene for over two decades.
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