Enigma Records

Artists

Artists

Accession

Born and raised in Sydney, this solo electronic musician commenced his musical journey in 1985 after parental sponsorship saw Phil starting lessons and taking control of the family keyboard.

A deep passion for rhythm drove Phil to take up drums and percussion, immediately involving himself in every possible musical ensemble within school. From orchestras, jazz bands, and musicals, to providing drum backing to HSC performance entrants - notably accompaniment to both Jason Whalley and Alexis Feltham (founders of punk-rock band Frenzal Rhomb).

Along with a fascination of audio, this decade brought an attraction to electronic music where early warehouse parties exposed Phil to the unique sounds and emotional energy inspired by this new "underground" dance music. A strong desire to create, rather than audition this music saw Phil bypassing the popular DJ career path and going straight on to explore its production through the use of an early Roland analogue synthesizer.

Phil, under the guise of "accession", has had much success through his demos, firstly as a featured artist on the Pacific Circle Dance Music Conference (1998) CD Sampler with the track New Dawn Bliss. He also pushed through to the finals of the Radio Dex/3D World Great Australian Bite Competition (1999) with the track Victory which included airplay on Radio Dex 96.9FM, and most recently, a semi-finalist in the Australia-wide Roland Australian Groove Master Competition (2000) with the track Hot August Nights.

Phil loves to see live artists and has always insisted on presenting his music in a live-sequenced performance. His first gigs were on a couple of cold Tuesday nights during July and August 1998 at Star - staged at the Icebox nightclub in Kings Cross. Since then he has performed at Rise'n'Shine - Rave Back in Time Recovery (Trumps Tavern - Dec '98), Conception (Millenium Room - Dec '98) and TECHNOPHILE (Trumps Tavern - Jun/Jun/Aug '99). He was featured in a full moon live performance at the 3 day festival Happy Valley - The Event Horizon (Cataract Park, Appin - Feb '00) as part of Yum Cha Cha's Promised Land stage. He performed at Elements (Bar Dendy - Martin Place - Apr/May/May '00) on three occasions, and most recently at the immensely successful Chemistry 3 (Paladium, Kings Cross - Jul '00), and Chemistry 4 (The Warehouse - Regent Street, Broadway - Sept '00) hosted by the Energy Emperors.

1999 was a hectic year for Phil: In April '99, Aurora Productions was formed, and together with his partner Jackie van Galen, they promoted and staged the successful weekly night of progressive/techno/trance: TECHNOPHILE. Held within Trumps Tavern, 48 King St, Sydney, it incorporated a complete audio/visual installation specifically for this event. DJs included Travis, Jumping Jack, Ben Korbel, Miss DJ, Jasper, Dion, Matt Zarin, Matrix, Galaktik, plus Nimmo (Melbourne). This popular club opened on Anzac Day, 25th April 1999, and operated every Saturday night until 18th September 1999.

A highlight for the club was Phil's passionate PA Search where advertisements were run calling for other artists to submit demos for an opportunity to play live at the club. Exciting live sets from Xenobis, HPS?, and Phil's own accession were played to enthusiastic capacity crowds. These performances became rare moments where clubbers were mesmerized as they observed the music being created in front of their eyes - quite an educational experience when you consider that most people have only listened to DJ turntable sets.

Phil has recently undergone a major overhaul of his studio to incorporate an Apple G4 Macintosh-based Pro Tools™ system by Digidesign®. It features 24 tracks of digital hard-disk recording and effects processing, plus an integrated MIDI sequencer capable of 128 tracks. Phil's been immensely excited about the new system, as it gives him the flexibility to work with vocalists and live musicians, as well as providing the necessary sound-design and mastering tools to span the entire engineering process, and raise his projects to a commercial standard.

In May 2000, Phil produced a piece of music to accompany a corporate video produced for a company who operate youth exchange programs. Moving away from the traditional dancefloor-style, in the future Phil would like to apply himself to the composition of film-like musical scores.

Phil can often be found actively participating on music-related website forums and a variety of email-based user groups, exchanging tips, techniques and ideas with other like-minded musicians from around the world. His dedicated contribution to the website forum run by UK's leading international electronic music magazine Future Music was particularly well received, and he's since joined FM's team of freelance writers. Since FM100 (October 2000), Phil has been caring for the reader's technical queries each month in the Q&A section, including studio dramas from Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), and the writing/production team The Matrix with such credits as Christina Aguilera, O-Town and Mya. Phil has also prepared numerous feature articles, including the very popular Do It Yourself Guide series on The Prodigy, Underworld, Fatboy Slim, Orbital, and most recently Progressive House. Each guide was accompanied by a collection of step guides and audio examples featured on the magazine's cover CD.

Release Listing

volume one

CD

volume two

CD