THOR 54/ EXOS/ C ROICK/ DUBSTAR - BLUE CRYSTALS EP

Exos is the alter ego of Arviður Snorrason who was born and raised in the infamous 101 district of downtovn Reykjavik, capital of Iceland. As a youngster he played the drums and absorbed influences from all the worlds music. But having heard electronic dance music there was no turning back. He was an avid observer of old-school hardcore in '92 and drum and bass in '93 and began to spin around, but gradually turned to house and techno in 94-95. At the age of 15 he began to compose minimal techno and early in '96 he got in touch with urban legend, Thor of Thule records, who published artists like Ozy, Sanasol, Biogen and Thor himself. Next year Thulemusik put out 3 EPs ,followed by Mosaic records with Steve O'Sullivan in Britain and Force Inc. in Germany who published two albums and 3 EPs. Exos made co-projects with artist Ohm in year 2000 (3 records for Force Inc. and Tissju Records in Iceland). Then Exos made remix projects with Ben Sims and Mark Broom of Theory Records in the UK and released a maxi for Symbolism Records, a label by Ben Sims. In 2001 Icelandic AE Records put out Exos' third album called "My Home Is Sonic", a collection of his best minimal tracks that was nominated for the best album of the year in local papers in his native Iceland. As he was maturing his love for music he decided that ultra deep and minimal electronica was his calling. He also got drawn praise for his efforts from such sources as WIRE and AMG along many magazines that serve the dance music scene. In 2002 Los Angeles based Automat records published an ep called Desert host by Exos who followed his releases through Europe spinning in clubs like Tresor (Berlin) Paradiso(Amsterdam) and Badofar (Paris) to name a few. Next year in 2003, Exos turned again to more deep mininimal music and released an ep called "U cant stop time" on Statik Entertainment records in Germany.That ep was a direct continue of the album "My home is sonic". In 2004 Exos music took a turn to the hard wing of techno resulting in remixes by Frank Hunter and Mark Broom put out by Symbolism records. Same year Exos teamed up with the high priest homeboy of hard techno, Dj Rush, to remix the first the record by Exos on his own label, Do not Sleep records. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

Sarah Blackwood, Steve Hillier and Chris Wilkie first appeared as Dubstar in 1994. Hillier's floating synths, Wilkie's chiming guitar and the ever-plaintive vocals from Sarah Blackwood drew comparisons to Pet Shop Boys, The Smiths and Kirsty MacColl, while the band regularly added Cocteau Twins and One Dove among their greatest influences. Dubstar released their debut album 'Disgraceful' on Food Records in the Autumn of 1995 to worldwide critical and commercial success. Disgraceful features four UK Top 40 singles including the dreampop classic Stars, perennial radio favourite Not So Manic Now and The Day I see You Again, a ballad that revisits a broken relationship that's been covered by artists as diverse as Claudia Brücken and Bon Bob Club. A timely female led version of Billy Bragg's St Swithin's Day caught the imagination of the music press; an instrumental version was even used as the theme for the BBC's coverage of the Euro '96 football championship. The follow up album Goodbye was released two years later and spawned another three UK Top 40 singles including No More Talk, a number one radio hit in the UK. Both albums were produced by Stephen Hague. Third album Make It Better was released in 2000 and includes the fan-favourite Self Same Thing, their last single for Food Records. A belated compilation 'Stars…the best of Dubstar' was released by EMI in 2004. Following a twelve year hiatus, Dubstar announced the recording of new material in 2012 and release their fourth, as yet untitled album in 2013, again working with Stephen Hague. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.