Kit Clayton

The minimal-to-abstract, somewhat dubby techno of electronic DJ and producer Kit Clayton has appeared on a large number of labels since 1996. Clayton runs several of his own labels, including Cytrax Records and Orthlorng Musorks, but his music -- which has garnered praise from such magazines as The Wire and Muzik -- can also be heard on Stefan Betke's Scape label, as well as Mille Plateaux, Organized Noise, Plug Research, Seventh City, Phthalo and more. Clayton studied at Conneticut's Wesleyan College, learning in the electronic music lab, where he composed interactive pieces. He now works out of his basement studio in San Francisco, not only on music, but on an audio software that helps create systems to generate music with varying randomization -- his "day job." He released the EPs Negative Powers and Unreliable Networks for Cytrax, and debuted on Thomas Brinkmann's Scape label with the praised Nek Purpalet EP in mid-1999. Before the end of the year, full-lengths followed on Drop Beat (Repetition and Nonsense) and Scape (Nek Sanalet). Despite his computer work, Clayton's creations reach beyond "computer music"; for him, computers are just another means of creation to be used along with acoustic, analogue and digital methods. He has also toured Germany, and created a project to pair visual art with electronic music called "the Mimic and the Model."