finetune artist: Main

This experimental UK band was formed in 1991 by guitarists Robert Hampson and Scott Dawson, formerly of trance rock outfit Loop. Taking the repetitive motifs from that band, Main refined the formula to accentuate the aesthetics of post-rave chill-out ambient music. Drawing heavily on environmental sounds on which they dubbed guitars, synths and electronically generated effects. Their first EP, 1991's Hydra, was dedicated to the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and was followed by the Calm EP. The bass-heavy Dry Stone Feed moved further into ambient sound, a process continued by 1993's Firmament and the triple-LP Motion Pool (trumpeted as a move into "drumless space"), records which eschewed conventional musical structure altogether. Firmament II comprised a single piece of music that created its own organic atmosphere by drawing on the constantly shifting ambience of everyday sound. The Hz box-set compiled the Corona, Terminus, Maser, Haloform, Kaon, and Neper EPs, which were originally released once a month between June and December 1995. The soundscapes on these EPs enable the listener's imagination to run wild, but no two people will come to the same conclusion. Dawson left following the recording of Firmament III, leaving Hampson to run Main as a solo project. He has since developed a stage act which dispenses with guitars altogether, by using a mixing desk to blend sounds drawn from several CD-ROMs.

Listen to Main at Finetune.

There Is Only Light
XV
Reformation
Spectra Decay
XI