If somebody were to make a film about intelligent dance music, Edwards would merit a starring role. With his rectangular specs and serious demeanor, he looks like Mensa material. Beyond surfaces, however, his impeccable musical taste and skills as a DJ, plus his own excellent productions, add to his stature.
Edwards emerged out of Los Angeles' "horrid anthem-rave-techno" scene in 1991. He organized events and created a zine, then got serious about vinyl in '95. After moving to Seattle in 1997, Edwards took a hiatus from music, but returned to it full-bore in 2001 and nabbed a slot on Groovetech Radio in 2002. After Groovetech folded later that year, he began the Morpheme Project, which fuses spoken word with electronic music, and obsessively worked on his own music, which evokes classic, dubby minimal-techno from the Chain Reaction and ~scape labels.
But in the last six months, Edwards has cranked up his musical activities both in the studio and behind the decks. In early July he busted out a killer DJ set that floored esteemed tech-house artist Bruno Pronsato and many others at the Phoenix Festival. And the See Sound night promises a beggar's banquet of hedonistic, egg-headed electronic music you can shake your ass to.
"My current favorite electronic genres are micro and glitch house for the floor and dub/experimental techno for the lounge," Edwards says. "These [styles] are pushing sonic boundaries the hardest at the moment.
"My DJ sets have many inspirations and methodologies that are dependent upon the venue and the audience," he continues. "If I'm playing in a lounge environment, I will create a collage of music that people do not recognize but instantly have an affinity for. If I'm in front of a dance floor, I focus on getting the crowd moving, but there is always an undercurrent of experiment that challenges the audience to accept new music. I have achieved my goal when I can get the crowd moving to something I consider experimental and edgy."
Those last two adjectives apply to Edwards' own music. "My studio work is an attempt to re-create the emotions one naturally associates with known sounds," he says. "I generally start with a sound-design session to create tones that are completely unique yet trigger a feeling of nostalgia."
On top of his full schedule of DJ and live dates, Edwards is the Decibel Festival's technology director and is partner with Greg Skidmore in the PG Series, which books world-class producers like Proem and Murcof. If he keeps up this pace, Edwards may edge out Sean Horton for MVP of Seattle's underground-electronic scene.
