It’s hard to survive in the music industry nowadays. More often than not, artists have to evolve and change their original sound to stay contemporary. Planned callously, this could mean make or break for the artist in question.
With the incessant conditioning of one’s musical palate, trying to do something different can lead to confusion, disfavour, and in the most dire of situations, the end of your career. One trick to solving such a conundrum, would simply be a split personality, but more easily handled with a second moniker. Here is a short list of producers who you may have guessed it, are actually one and the same.
6. Pendulum/ Knife Party
Pendulum originated from the city of Perth and to give credit where credit is due, brought Drum & Bass to a new level, exposing the genre to audiences wider than it had ever seen before. Primarily Rock influenced, they innovated a “live” live set that toured the world over and over. During one of these tours two of the founding members, Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, decided that they would rather confuse people with the word “bass” by starting to what they self-proclaim to be “Seizure music”. Thus was born Knife Party.
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5. DJ Clipz/ Redlight
After a decade of Drum and Bass, Hugh Pescod aka Bristol’s DJ Clipz finally gave up on the scene after finding it a bit too restrictive. He now makes other bass related music under the moniker Redlight starting his own label Lobster Boy, which seems to attract a lot of split personalities.
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5. Mensah/ New York Transit Authority
This one is a little bit more niche, but for those in the know, just as eye-opening. The man who performs under the alias of New York Transport Authority originates from ironically nowhere near the Big Apple, but in fact from the British city of Bristol. As you’ve probably ascertained from the title, the man behind the misleading moniker was Mensah, releasing the origins of dubstep through labels such as H.E.N.C.H and Deep Medi Music going by the name of Mensah. From deep dubstep to 808 driven House, thus was Mensah to the NYTA.
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3. Dave Spoon/ Shadow Child
Dave Spoon made a number of radio hits back in the mid-noughties, most notably “At Night” and “Bad Girl ft. Lisa Maffia“. Uninspired by the direction in which the “Spoon” brand was heading, he sent the garage-y stringy “String Thing” to the Eats Everything, and from there it made its way to Claude VonStroke. The rest they say is history.
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3. Clockwork/ RL Grime
Clockwork is a 22 year old producer from LA. With 135k likes on his facebook page, he is one of EDM’s youngest rising stars. Little did you know, or perhaps you did, that while simultaneously pleasing the more easily appeased, he has been making not only a name for himself in the emerging world of Trap but also the ground that defines it – as RL Grime.
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2. Paul Woolford/ Special Request
A veteran of the House and Techno scenes, ever since the legendary release of “Erotic Discourse” in 2006, Paul Woolford has remained one step ahead of his contemporaries. Still in high demand at the age of 38, after more than 20 years in the music game he has recently had a flurry of releases on Hotflush, Planet E, and Cocoon, and in testament to his musical competence, reinvented himself under the moniker of Special Request, returning Jungle and Hardcore back to the main stage.
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1. Jessie Andrews/ Jessie Andrews
The only artist to have had her vagina artificially replicated, ex-pornstar cum DJ, Jessie Andrews takes the number one spot, undergoing the greatest transformation (career-wise), and not just because I’ve seen her naked. So in lieu of what I would have liked to post as the before (which you can easily go search yourself), I’ll just leave you with a quote from the women herself.
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If you love music do it… if you love fucking do it… and don’t care what people think.
