For the last 20 years 69db and fellow jam partners from the network23 family have been developing a scheme that fuses live improvisation with electronic music and programming. The result is an electronic dance music that takes it's structure from people like, Larry levin, Ron hardy,Miles Davis, Sun Ra,with a bit of P Funk thrown in. Keeping in tune with these influences and the way of DJ's before mass commercialism pushed DJ's into 1 hour slots, the 69db liveact,  is as flexible as elastic, capable of operating in all time spaces from 1hr - 12hrs non stop. This way of playing has gained much respect from the dance-floors all round Europe's underground . Hearing 69db live is like being on a great trip, taking your mind to a nice place through beats and bleeps and keeping you in a trance like state of mind with loads of cool effects….

“Trance-like, playful and with great imagination.” Trax magazine

“This ex-Spiral Tribe  still adapts the good old “Dub technic” in his own way in a definitely techno context this gives rise to fragmented bass-music, sometimes close to drum’n’bass but always personal and groovy.” Codamagazine

“The artist’s mastery is recognized. The asphalt spirit can still be left. Total pleasure.” Phosphore

69DB – Beats, programming, mix.

At the age of 17 69db left his home on the west coast of Scotland and moved to London to play drums for his psychedelic rock band x-effect. The year was 1988 and was the year that Acid House took the country by force. A whole generation changed overnight! After 2 years of discovery in and around the many parties 69db , being a drummer, saw the potential in this repetitive beat. At the same time as joining Spiral Tribe Sound System 69db enrolled in City of Leeds Collage of Music where he got his 1^st access to a recording studio. It was here that he composed his first tracks for Spiral Tribe.

Over the 90’s along with Spiral and its sub labels Network 23 and Stormcore 69db has worked under names such as SP23, R-ZAC and Liveset Dub.He has worked also on many labels i.e. Butterfly records,Big Life, Drop Bass Network, Force inc. ,Rabbit City , Trax Records Chicago,, UWe, Labworks , Acid Orange ,Dub Technic , and  Expressillon.

Music is an universal language …. 69db’s music literally grew up on the sound systems of the 1990’s. He has played consistently in the European underground , installing his live on party after party for now close on 20 years. It is from this background that his love and need for improvisation has been established.

It was in 1997 that the now much respected and fruitful collaboration with Paris based Label Expressillon began. It has been a very open collaboration that has led to recordings that have created a world that explores Dub, techno, breakbeat, industrial tech., and group improvisation.

Everything began with the album ‘‘Dub-technic’’ a voyage into improvised jams fusing dub, techno and breakbeat. This was followed by ‘‘Freestyling’’ which highlighted the meeting between 69db and Anglo-Jamaican  M.C. Tablloyd. This brought a vocal-beat box dimension to the improvisations.

Following this came the albums ‘‘Dragon Dub’’ and ‘‘Chip Jockey’’ two solo projects - one Dub , one Hard- Techno .

After that came New Weather, a Jazz, techno, dub fusion group that was a free improvisation between Sax, percussion, bass, vocals, electronic drums ,Next came the album from M.C. Tablloyd and 69db “Bedroom mixes from the soul”  which was released in France in September 2003. Along side a liveact that has been in constant demand for 20 years, 69db has clocked up over 80 vinyl EP's, 9 Albums and hundreds of improvised mixtape/cd's.More recently 69db has been working with Crystal Distortion on a sell out tour on Mainland Europe.

69db has always fought to preserve a feeling of freedom and spirituality in his music. He has always felt a strong influence from musicians such as Larry levin, Ron Hardy, Africa bambaataa, John Coltrane , Miles Davis , Jimmy Hendrix , Kind Tubby , Talking Heads and Frank Zappa.

“It is open mindedness that can bring about fusion and it is only fusion that can bring about togetherness…