I got started about 10 years ago I think, maybe longer, with trackers. Scream Tracker was the very first piece of music software I got into but I never did a whole lot with it. The demo scene and musicians like Skaven and Purple Motion were my first real inspirations to create music, but I hadn't been exposed to much electronic music at that point, so I mostly just fiddled around with ambient sound pieces and never released anything. I eventually found MODPlug Tracker and Rebirth and started working with these programs--at the time there wasn't a whole lot of good software available, and I remember spending entire nights trying to record my rebirth songs with it's clunky interface. It didn't really have a sequencer to speak of, you just had to hit record and switch up your patterns in time and hope you don't mess up. At some point I discovered Aphex Twin and it completely changed my perspective on what electronic music could be. Eventually reason came out and I started using that and wrote my first ep, 'Sunday', using just Reason (probably v1.0 at that point in time). I eventually moved on to Cubase and finally to Ableton Live, which I use today for pretty much everything.

It's hard to nail down the sound, as it's really changed a lot over the years as I've learned more and heard more music. I write music that I enjoy first and foremost--if I'm not feeling it then I can't bring myself to finish it, and I'll scrap it. I enjoy all kinds of music, but over the past few years I've been really into a kind of jazzy idm sound. I've developed a serious rhodes habit that I need to break myself out of, but I just love the sound of it so much.

Laptop - Asus S96j, Dual Core, 2.0ghz w/ 2gb ram
Ableton 7 + vsts/vstis
M-Audio ProjectMix I/O
Machinedrum UW Mk1
Access Virus A
Monome 40h (the original with the aluminum casing)
various midi controllers: UC-33, MPD16, misc. midi keyboards
Alesis Mk1 Active Monitors

Ableton is pretty high on the list, but I could get by with Cubase if necessary. The Machinedrum is pretty high up there too--I absolutely love the sound of the Machinedrum and have invested quite a bit of time incorporating it into my workflow with custom Max/Msp patches that interface it with the Monome; but the one piece I could absolutely not live without is the laptop.

Most of the time I'll start with a synth patch and play around with it on a keyboard. I'll make a 4 bar loop or so and start from there. Next, I'll layer on drums generally, and then bass and pads/atmospheric sounds. Once I've got a nice "4-bar wonder" going I'll start to expand it into 8 or 16 bars by copy/pasting and making changes. From there I'll start experimenting with other ideas around the same set of sounds. I might make a new beat with the original drum kit and a new main synth line/bass line, and possibly find other instruments to layer around it or reuse the existing ones. Once I have about 3 distinct parts or so I'll start to map out the song structure and leave room for intros, outros, bridges, fills, etc. at this point I probably have a part that plays through at the beginning of the song and comes back later on. I'll try to add additional layers or make small adjustments to the drum/synth patterns when it comes back to give it a little push forward, so it doesn't get too repetitive but it maintains a consistent feel. One of the last things I'll do is add in the details--fills, transitions, small variations in synth lines or drum patterns, etc. I generally switch off between working on the structure and working on the mix and details of the sounds (maybe applying some compression to the drums, or a hp filter on a synth part to remove the lows) as I go along.

Never underestimate the power of the random button. I've hit upon so many great sounds but just messing with randomizers that I never would've programmed myself in a million years. It takes some understanding of sound synthesis to really make good use of it--generally if I find a great sound by randomizing settings it's not perfect and I'll need to tweak it a bit to get it to sound how I like, but it's a wonderful starting point--much better than going through presets I think. One method I used to generate a lot of great sounds was to setup three Reaktor instances in Ableton and route their outputs to separate audio tracks. I loaded up Krypt, Metaphysical Function and Skrewell, and modified them where needed to send in a midi note to trigger the randomize functions on each of them. I used midi clips to trigger the random feature every four bars and recorded the output. The result is an unlimited amount of 4-bar drum sequences and sounds from Metaphysical and Skrewell. I would then take my favorite 4-bar Krypt recordings and slice them up with Sound Forge into individual sounds and load the individual sounds I liked into Battery to sequence out drum loops. The Max patch I developed to interface the Monome with the Machinedrum works on similar concepts but is more performance-oriented and offers lots of great real-time control features. Using this setup I'll generally record 100+ bars out of Machinedrum by essentially 'jamming' on the Monome, which I'll then cut up into smaller phrases and sequence. The virus also has a great random patch feature that I've used to come up with some wonderful sounds, sometimes it even sets parameters to illegal values which generally results in some wildly unique sounds.

Bend, Sinister is currently on hold while we work on different projects. I've been trying to focus more on Phortran and a few other collaborations I'm getting involved in, and Justin has since joined a band called Cardiac Party (who are really good btw and definitely worth checking out). I'm actually back in touch with Tony from the Chemical Sky project and am involved in a larger collaborative effort he's putting together right now. I don't want to say too much about it right now but I'm really excited to get to work on that. I highly recommend checking out his band as well, Attack of the Giant Squid, they're amazing. They have some great videos on Youtube.

Too many projects and not enough time, I suppose. I plan on reviving it someday but for the time being we're not releasing any new music. I'm working on rewriting and redesigning the site but it's hard to balance that with everything else I want to do. I also do web site development professionally so it's hard to find the motivation to work on it as I'm doing web development all day long. I do pick it up every month or so and work on it a bit, but I don't know when it'll be revived at this point. I'm trying to focus more on writing music these days when I have spare time. Someday.

I spend a lot of time with my girlfriend whom I adore, and I'm a video game fanatic, I'll admit it. I've really been enjoying the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games recently. Besides that it's movies, seeing friends, going to shows, etc. Pretty normal stuff, nothing too exciting.

Usually pretty relaxed and laid back. I'm not one for going out much but I do like to catch a show here and there. Most of my music writing happens during the weekend because it's really the only time I can dedicate large blocks of time to doing it. I've also been trying to learn to play guitar and bass in my spare time.

Honestly I don't buy a lot of music at record shops anymore but when I did I always found interesting things at Zia Records, Stinkweeds, and Eastside Records. I think Stinkweeds is closed now though. I'm not big on going to clubs or big shows but I really enjoy the Thru The Wires series of shows. They bring out some really amazing acts and the shows are always lots of fun. Mesa Arts Center's sound in the Ground Series is also really good. There's actually a pretty big local music scene in Phoenix and I enjoy seeing local bands play once in awhile.

Some of my favorites are:

Pita House in Old Town Scottsdale -- best hummus and gyros around (imho)
Los Sombreros in South Scottsdale -- great authentic mexican food, best bowl of tortilla soup i've ever had
Fate in downtown Phoenix -- tiny little chinese food place, but very unique and tasty recipes

More information on Phortran & his music can be found at: http://myspace.com/phortran & http://phortran.ivdt.net

Also, don't forget to check out: Bend, Sinister & Post-Digital