Depending on whom you ask, Matthew Dear (born in Kingsville, Texas, USA) is a DJ, a dance-music producer, an experimental pop artist, a bandleader. He co-founded both Ghostly International and its dancefloor offshoot, Spectral Sound. He's had remixes commissioned by The xx, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Spoon, Hot Chip, The Postal Service and The Chemical Brothers; he's made mixes for the Fabric mix series and Get Physical's Body Language. He maintains four aliases (Audion, False, Jabberjaw, and Matthew Dear), each with its own style and distinct visual identity. He straddles multiple musical worlds and belongs to none - and he's just hitting his stride.

Dear's first single was 1999's "Hands Up For Detroit" (co-produced by ghettotech pioneer Disco D, who performed under the name Daisha). Successive singles, such as "Stealing Moves" and the chart-topping "Mouth to Mouth" (as Audion) were issued on Spectral Sound, Ghostly's offshoot that focuses on dancefloor music.

Matthew Dear's 2003 full-length Ghostly debut, "Leave Luck to Heaven", is a suite of sparse, wickedly funky house laced with Dear's deep, distinctive vocals, and includes the much-loved single "Dog Days" (voted one of Pitchfork's Top 100 Songs of the decade). The record was met with rapturous acclaim from both the dance-music establishment and the critical press, including a four-star review in Rolling Stone. Dear's 2007 follow-up, "Asa Breed", is a considerable departure from Heaven's dancefloor excursions, incorporating the polyrhythms of afrobeat, the irreverent pop sensibilities of Brian Eno, and the austere beauty of krautrock. More four-stars reviews followed (Q and Mojo magazines), and Dear subsequently began touring with a live three-piece band, Matthew Dear's Big Hands, in which he acted as frontman, commanding the stage with a Bryan Ferry-like swagger and a gentleman's grace.

Today, Matthew Dear finds himself in a unique position. His highly anticipated fourth album, 2010's Black City, is the culmination of years of hard work and experimentation, a darkly playful sound-world that envelops the listener like the arms of a malevolent lover. After over a decade of exploring pop's outer limits, Matthew Dear now inhabits a rarefied corner of the musical universe: no longer tethered to any one genre, respected by his peers, and blessed with a bottomless well of creative energy. Now is Matthew Dear's moment, and it sounds like nothing else.

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There are two artists with the name Blondes.

1) Blondes are Zach Steinman and Sam Haar and met at Oberlin College.

2) Blondes is an eurodance project from the Czech republic.
The group was made of the two vocalists Lenka and Markéta and the rapper Paul Blond.
Producers were Christian Koltarac and Don Gawthorne.
Their first single was "Open Your Heart".
They released 3 albums:
"Love Generation" - in 1995 with megahits "Magic Love Affair" and "Volare Cantare (Love Generation)".
"The Satin Album" - in 1997 with "Amor (Knockin' Here On My Door)"
"Cocktail" - in 1998 with "Saint Tropez".

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The son of Ecuadorean immigrants, Roberto Carlos Lange was born in South Florida in 1980. His childhood was suffused with tropical heat, humidity, hurricanes, all refracted with the rich sounds and colors of the various Latin American cultures of southern Florida. Pounding bass beats from passing cars, boom boxes bouncing down the block, and late-night parties called "peñas" provided a foundation for Lange's interest in sound and lifelong quest to discover the unlimited variety of objects used to produce music. Over the last few years Lange has collaborated with prominent visual and sound artist David Ellis to compose a new series of kinetic sound sculptures. These include typewriters that self-type the lyrics to Grand Master Flash's "The Message" (in rhythm to the song, none-the-less), musical owls drawn out of liquor bottles, owl costumes made out of straws, flying musical birds, motion paintings, and trashcans (full of trash) that are actually living drum machines. Lange has also worked with Paul Duncan and Bear in Heaven as well as famed music producer Guillermo Scott Herren to produce Prefuse 73 and Savath and Savalas as an active member and contributor.
...more

If that was not enough, Lange's other projects include ROM, Epstein, and Helado Negro. Epstein is Lange's "beats and loops" project, a friendly beast born of the MPC sampler. Epstein's wildly prolific output, including a series of digital releases, full-lengths, and a remix album, is a gauzy, sunny kind of dancemusic that references DJ mixing, summertime blockparties, and mellow compositional noise. Helado Negro came together when Lange moved to New York in 2006 (he now calls Crown Heights, Brooklyn home). The early group concept grew through projects and experiments Roberto would conduct while recording himself and others in his home studio. Loops, computer synthesis, record samples, and live instruments provided the foundation for the first full-length, Awe Owe, a vibrant, shimmering, full-band Latin psyche-funk-folk epic.

After taking time to create a new series of sound sculptures, release a Helado Negro EP, score one film and begin work on another (based around his animation), Lange recently holed up in a cabin in the Connecticut woods to record the follow-up to Awe Owe. Canta Lechuza is the latest incarnation of Helado Negro and its sound may come as a surprise. Gone is the big collaborative group jam of previous work and in its place is Helado-Negro-as-intimate-solo-project. Canta Lechuza feels like the place it was recorded-its vocals and beats and synth lines coming together to craft a warm, buoyant, comforting electronic dance sound, an effortless, personal thing anchored by Lange's warm, earthy, conversational voice. Based around field recordings and live instrumentation fed through computer processing, Canta Lechuza is a thoroughly modern affair, a thing drenched in texture and mood. The album has the feeling of hibernation, of satisfying days spent keeping warm next to the fire, of hot tea and technology as constant companions. It's the kind of record that feels good to hear alone, but throw it on at your next danceparty and you will have no complaints. This is the world Roberto Carlos Lange. Keep an eye on him. He'll always have a surprise for you...


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