Steve Grainger is an English

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

composer and performer. His current project is nada (always written in lower-case letters).

Biography

Grainger has been active as a musician and producer for almost 30 years, in which time he has worked as a music writer for TV production companies, produced numerous records and played in several bands - most notably, those of the mid-noughties

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

scene such as The Customers and The Small. In 1999 he signed with

Infectious Records An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable dise ...

, a subsidiary of

Mushroom Records Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...

as a founder member of Elevator Suite with DJs Andy Childs and Paul Roberts,Collins complete UK hit singles 1952-2004 Graham Betts - 2004 - Page 254 "ELEVATOR SUITE UK instrumental/production trio fanned by Andy Childs, Steve Grainger and Paul Roberts." a band whose first two singles were crowned "Record Of The Week" on

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

, and who went on to tour Europe with

Morcheeba Morcheeba is an English electronic band formed in the mid-1990s with founding members vocalist Skye Edwards and the brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey. They mix influences from trip hop, rock music, rock, folk rock and downtempo, and have produced ...

and release a critically acclaimed album: '' Barefoot & Shitfaced''.

nada

nada's music references a variety of sources including post-war European 'art' music, classical

impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

and

romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic, ...

, ethnic

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

bands, fairground mechanical organs,

minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

, post rock,

ambient Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to: Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds * Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere * ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby * ...

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded danc ...

easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

. The name nada, according to Grainger is: ''"...supposed to indicate my attitude toward music; you see, 'nada' is the ancient

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

word for the universal sound vibration - which I believe gives rise to the entire universe, everything we know... and of course, it's also Spanish for 'nothing' so, to me, 'nada' means 'everything and nothing', which is how I think about music..!"'' Live performances - which are rare - either consist of just Steve with a laptop and a few auxiliary instruments or comprise a small 'chamber' group of musicians from other acts on the Drift Records roster. A typical 'Group' line-up might include: Johny Lamb ( Thirty Pounds of Bone, Cottonmouth Rocks, Actress Hands) on

Cornet The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B, though there is also a sopr ...

, Sally Megee (Cottonmouth Rocks) on

Keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

, Rob Woolhouse (

The Burns Unit The Burns Unit was an eight-piece Scottish-Canadian folk music supergroup. The band formed in 2006, after the musicians met at Burnsong, a Scottish songwriting retreat. The band members come from varying musical genres including folk, pop and r ...

) on

Bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

, Jon Pugh ( The Poppycocks) on

Drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

and Tim Didymus on

Saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

. nada's debut album '' how to avoid matrimony'' features instrumental contributions from Johny Lamb, Jon Pugh, Tim Didymus,

Andy Halliday Andrew William Halliday (born 11 October 1991) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a midfielder or left-back for Scottish Premiership club Heart of Midlothian. He has previously played for Livingston, Middlesbrough, Walsall, Bl ...

, Annie Kerr and Art Holland. It is released in 2009 on UK-based independent label Drift Records.

nada Discography

''how to avoid matrimony'' (2009)

References

External links

nada at Reverb Nation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nada n Living people Musicians from Brighton and Hove Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people)