Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Spectre

 
Artist: Spectre
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Pop Artists

Similar Artists:

Rx, Slotek, We, Final, Alec Empire, DJ Shadow, Dr. Octagon, Download, Wu-Tang Clan, New Kingdom, Scorn, Godflesh, Ice, El-P, Techno Animal, Byzar, DJ Spooky, Tricky

Influenced By:

Skinny Puppy, Public Enemy, Jungle Brothers, Boogie Down Productions
  • Active: '90s, 2000s
  • Genres: Electronica
  • Instrument: Producer, Vocals
  • Representative Albums: "The Illness," "The Second Coming," "Psychic Wars"

Biography

An appropriately shadowy entity with several albums for WordSound and production spots for Prince Paul and Techno Animal, Spectre is the Nosferatu of underground horrorcore, channeling the more isolated tones of industrial-dub and illbient into hip-hop productions of an intensely paranoid nature. Inspired by the rich legacy of horror films and dark industrial pioneers like Skinny Puppy as well as the old school of hip-hop, the rapper/producer debuted by hosting The Ill Saint Presents Subterranean Hitz, a seminal illbient compilation released on WordSound in 1996.

Spectre's first album, The Illness, dropped later that year (sample track title: "Spectre Meets the Psycho Priest in the Temple of Smoke"), also on WordSound. Between LPs he kept quite busy, making appearances on Prince Paul's Psychoanalysis LP, the second volume in Virgin's Macro Dub Infection series, Techno Animal's remix album Vs. Reality, and Unitone Hi-Fi's Rewound & Rerubbed. Spectre also released RuffKutz, a 90-minute mix tape spotlighting his new label, Black Hoodz, with tracks by Dr. Israel, Sensational, Mr. Dead, and the Jungle Brothers. Sophomore LP The Second Coming was released in late 1998; The End followed in early 2000. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Wikipedia: Spectre (musician)
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Spectre
Birth name Skiz Fernando
Also known as The Eye, The Ill Saint, Minister Fernando, Wordsound I-Powa, Slotek
Genre(s) Illbient, Hip hop, Trip hop
Years active mid-1990s – present
Label(s) Wordsound

Spectre is Skiz Fernando, head of the Wordsound label, in his record producer, rapper and electronica artist persona.

Contents

Career

He is known for dark, brooding compositions inspired by illbient, trip hop, industrial music, and horror films, and has been described as "the Nosferatu of underground horrorcore".[1] His first album was The Illness (1995), which drew comparisons with the Wu-Tang Clan and Lee "Scratch" Perry,[2] and cemented his reputation in the musical community, and was rated at number 29 on music critic Piero Scaruffi's list of "Best hip-hop albums of all times".[3], with Scaruffi describing Spectre's first three albums as "the hip-hop equivalent of a William Blake poem".[4] He soon began collaborating with Prince Paul (on his Psychoanalysis album), Techno Animal (Vs Reality), Sensational (on Spectre's 2001 album Parts Unknown), and others.[1][4]

Spectre also released a 90 minute mixtape, RuffKutz, which showcased his new label, Black Hoodz, and featured tracks by Dr. Israel, Sensational, Mr. Dead, and the Jungle Brothers. His second album, The Second Coming was released in 1998, with a third, The End following in 2000.[1]

Psychic Wars was released in 2003, with reviewer Mason Jones commenting "Spectre's world is a dark, dank back alley, with echoes of doom-laden bass pulses and the distant clanks and thuds of a factory on the outskirts of town".[5] German magazine Skug described the album as "Gnackwat for the brain cells".[6] The album featured vocals from Honeychild and was mixed by Pere Ubu's Tony Maimone.[7]

Crooked

In 2000 while visiting family in Sri Lanka, Fernando wrote the script for a movie called Crooked. The film was shot in 25 days in April 2001 then edited and put through post production through the summer and winter of the same year. It was released on the Wordsound label as a soundtrack and a two disc DVD set in 2002.[8]

Other aliases

  • The Eye
  • The Ill Saint
  • Minister Fernando
  • Wordsound I-Powa
  • Slotek

Album releases

  • The Illness (1995)
  • The Second Coming (1997)
  • The End (1999)
  • Parts Unknown (2001)
  • Psychic Wars (2003)
  • Retrospectre (2004)
  • Transcendent (2006)

Film

Several tracks from The Illness and The Second Coming were used in the film The Mindscape of Alan Moore.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c Bush, John "Spectre Biography", Allmusic, Macrovision Corporation (also published in All Music Guide to Hip-hop By Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, John Bush, Backbeat Books, 2003, ISBN 0879307595, 9780879307592)
  2. ^ Bush, John "Spectre - The Illness" (review), Allmusic, Macrovision Corporation
  3. ^ Scaruffi, Piero "Best hip-hop albums of all times"
  4. ^ a b Scaruffi, Piero "Spectre", The History of Rock Music
  5. ^ Jones, Mason (2003) "Dark Beats and Dank Sounds From the Other Side" (Psychic Wars review), Dusted
  6. ^ Deisl, Heinrich (2003) "Spectre / Mentol Nomad", Skug, Issue #55
  7. ^ Anderson, Rick "Spectre - Psychic Wars" (review), Allmusic, Macrovision Corporation
  8. ^ Bret McCabe"Wordsound and Vision". Baltimore CityPaper. 2002-05-29. http://www.citypaper.com/music/review.asp?rid=7157. 
  9. ^ The Mindscape of Alan Moore at allmovie

External links

Stub icon This article on an electronic musician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Spectre (musician)".  Read more

Related answers
» More
 
Answer these
» More

Mentioned in

» More» More