Woob is the stage name of Paul Frankland, an English
ambient music
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It u ...
ian who started recording in the early 1990s. Woob's albums combine elements of
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
* ...
,
downtempo
Downtempo (or downbeat) is a broad label for electronic music that features an atmospheric sound and slower beats than would typically be found in dance music. Closely related to ambient music but with greater emphasis on rhythm, the style may ...
and
space music
Space music, also called spacemusic or space ambient, is a subgenre of new-age music and is described as "tranquil, hypnotic and moving". It is derived from ambient music and is associated with lounge music, easy listening, and elevator music.
...
, with samples from
field recording
Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside a recording studio, and the term applies to recordings of both natural and human-produced sounds. It also applies to sound recordings like electromagnetic fields or vibra ...
s, movies and television. Frankland has also recorded under the names of Journeyman and Max & Harvey. After a period working in the advertising industry, he started releasing new material as Woob in 2010: after that time, Woob's works have gradually shifted towards a more synthwave-oriented sound and adopted a cyberpunk/futuristic imagery.
Recording career
Woob
Paul Frankland started writing music as a teenager, and went on to get a master’s degree in
film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
while also working as a DJ.
He first came to attention in the early 1990s when he submitted the track ″Void″ to the Nottingham-based t:me ' recording company. The track was included on the first release by t:me’s new downtempo label
Em:t, a compilation album titled ''em:t 0094'', which led to Woob signing with the label.
Woob's first full length album, ''
Woob 1194'', was released by Em:t in 1994 and was immediately regarded as a milestone in ambient music. Production involved an
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...
work station,
Akai s950 sampler and a
Gem s2 synthesizer. The tracks were mixed and performed live, which contributed to the organic and evocative nature of the music.
Following the success of his first album, which was re-released in the United States by
Instinct Records
Instinct Records is a New York City electronic-music record label that first gained prominence in 1989. It is best known for releasing much of Moby's early work. Moby produced a number of tracks under various monikers so that in the early days, t ...
, Woob contributed tracks to more Em:t compilations and to trance label Flying Rhino Records. In late 1995, he released a second album on Em:t titled
Woob2 4495, which garnered further praise. A third Woob album was being planned in 1998 when Em:t went out of business.
There were no Woob releases between 1999 and 2009; during this time, Frankland was writing music and doing sound design for a number of major advertising agencies, including
Ridley Scott Associates
Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is a British film director and producer. Directing, among others, science fiction films, his work is known for its atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. Scott has received many accolades th ...
and A-Bomb. The return of Woob was heralded by the re-release of ''Woob 1194'' at the end of 2009. The 10-minute single, ″Unknown Quantity″, was released on 1 January 2010, followed in May by the album
Repurpose, which combined remixes of old material with new tracks.
The ″Paradigm Flux″ EP was released in September 2010. Woob initially announced that the EP was a taster for a soundtrack album of the same name, but it was followed in November 2011 by ″Return to the City″ a full-length album that Frankland said would accompany a film described as a 'Paradigm Flux Prologue'.
November 2012 saw the release of the first album in what would become the ''Have Landed Trilogy'', an aural journey through time and space. The first album, titled ''Have Landed'' was released as both a Woob album ''and'' an album by Max and Harvey. Frankland's website gave this explanation: ″Have Landed encompasses some of the best recordings previously released under the Max & Harvey moniker along with a plethora of new material including a few surprises″.
Part of the surprise was the number of limited editions, with different CD covers and associated 'artifacts' including sticker sets,
USB flash drives
A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since first ...
, and a model rocket ship. This was followed in September 2013 by the album ''ULTRASCOPE'', released in various editions including the extensively remixed ″Time Paradox″ version. More coherent than its predecessor, one reviewer noted the use of soaring synth chords, thundering drums and the use of
arpeggio
A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves.
An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...
that was reminiscent of the
Berlin School.
The trilogy was completed in July 2014 with the release of ″Ambient Disaster Movie″, an album of characteristically spacey soundscapes that included samples from old
science fiction films
Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...
.
Between Ultrascope and Ambient Disaster Movie, Frankland also released an album called ''Lost 1194'', which consisted of previously unheard versions of tracks from the Woob debut album.
Journeyman
In 1994, the year of the first Woob album, Frankland also started recording with DJ Colin Waterton under contract to NTone, a sub label of
Ninja Tune
Ninja Tune is an English independent record label based in London. It has a satellite office in Los Angeles. It was founded by Matt Black and Jonathan More (better known as Coldcut) and managed by Peter Quicke and others.
Inspired by a visit ...
. The duo released two albums under the name 'Journeyman'. The first album, 'Mama 6', came out in 1994, featuring long
ambient dub
Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It u ...
soundscapes, with samples of
world music and movie dialogue of the kind that could be found on the Woob albums. By contrast, 'National Hijinx', released in 1997, had shorter tracks with elements of
drum and bass
Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...
.
The second album marked the end of Frankland's collaboration with Waterton. When asked about the partnership in an interview, Frankland said "Colin Waterton had lots of influence on the first Journeyman album. The idea was that we'd start a record label as a duo, but it didn't happen. Colin moved on and started concentrating on other stuff. He did work on about three of the songs on 'National Hijinx' though."
Max and Harvey
In 1998, Frankland started putting out tracks under the name 'Max and Harvey' (alternatively 'Max & Harvey'). The first track, 'Big Amoeba Sound', was a collaboration with Mark Butt (a.k.a. Scabboy) who had designed the album cover for the Journeyman album 'National Hijinx'. The group was named after Mark's dogs (who also appear in the group logo) and the track title was later pluralised to become the name of Frankland's own label 'bigamoebasounds'. The track later appeared on the ''
Xen Cuts
''Xen Cuts'' is a compilation album released by Ninja Tune independent record label on their tenth anniversary. The album was released in a four-piece vinyl recording (ZEN49), as two-disc CD (ZENCD049) and as a three-disc CD (ZENCD049X) versions, ...
'' compilation album, marking the 10th anniversary of the Ninja Tune label.
Subsequent releases under the name of 'Max and Harvey' were the work of Frankland, although Riad Abji, who had shared a flat with Frankland and Butt, played bass and guitar on a number of early tracks by Woob, Journeyman and Max & Harvey.
Over the next decade, a handful of Max and Harvey tracks appeared on compilation albums released by Ninja Tune and Flying Rhino Records. Two EPs containing both old and new material were released by Bigameobasounds in 2010. With the release of ''Have Landed'' in 2012, Frankland announced on his website that "Woob has assimilated Max & Harvey".
Legacy
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
described the first two albums, ''Woob 1194'' and ''Woob
2 4495'' as 'among the most praised and encompassing documents of post-rave ambient of the last several years', while the Ambient Music Guide describes them as 'among the most refined, subtle and innovative examples of the meeting between electronics and live instruments that flowered in the ambient environment of the 1990'
With the release of "Return to the City" in November 2011, the Electronic Music Guide described Woob as 'an ambient music genius'. The guide rated the new album 9.9 out of 10 and stated that it was contender for 'soundtrack of the year'.
The 2013 release ''ULTRASCOPE'' was included in the Ambient Music Guide's selection of Best Albums of the year.
Discography
Woob
;Albums
* ''
Woob 1194'' (
Em:t Records, Instinct Records US, 1994)
* ''
Woob2 4495'' (Em:t Records, 1995)
* ''Woob 1194'' (re-release, Bigamoebasounds, 2009)
* ''
Repurpose'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2010)
* ''Return to the City'' (soundtrack) (Bigamoebasounds, 2011)
* ''Have Landed (aka Woob1112)'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2012)
* ''ULTRASCOPE (aka Woob1113)'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2013)
* ''ULTRASCOPE: Time Paradox'' (Bigamoebasounds,2013)
* ''
Lost 1194'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2013)
* ''Ambient Disaster Movie (aka Woob0014)'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2014)
* ''Light and Levitation (Epilogue)'' (Time Limited, 2015)
* ''Adaption'' (Time Limited, 2015)
* ''Death by Coin-Op'' (Time Limited, 2016)
* ''ULTRASCOPE (Deluxe Version)'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2016)
* ''Overrun_exe'' (Isometric, 2016)
* ''Tokyo Run'' (Isometric, 2017)
* ''新 プログラム'' (Time Limited, 2018)
* ''スリープ 研究 プログラム'' (Time Limited, 2018)
* ''Tokyo Substrate Paradox'' (Isometric, 2018)
* ''Suite 59201'' (Time Limited, 2020)
* ''1001'' (The 00 Collection, 2020)
* ''3003'' (The 00 Collection, 2020)
* ''Monochrome 3003'' (Em:tted, 2020)
* ''2002'' (The 00 Collection, 2020)
* ''Lost Metropolis'' (Isometric, 2020)
* ''Xvious_exe'' (Isometric, 2020)
* ''Monochrome Xvious_exe'' (Isometric, 2020)
;Compilation albums
* ''Intervision 1015'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2015)
* ''MXV'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2015)
* ''Hypersleep 10'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2019)
;Singles and EPs
* ''Planet Woob'' (cassette-only demo tape, 1993)
* ''Void, Part 2'' (Beeswax Records, 1994)
* ''Odonna (Bells Mix) Edi'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2009)
* ''EP1'' (Bigamoebasounds, 2009)
* ''Giant Stroke (v2)'' (Bigamoebasounds 2009)
* ''Unknown Quantity'' (Bigamoebasounds 2010)
* ''Paradigm Flux'' (soundtrack EP) (Bigamoebasounds, 2010)
* ''Mass Distraction'' (EP) (Isometric, 2015)
* ''Tales of Arcadia'' (Time Limited, 2016)
;Compilation appearances
* "Void, Part 1" on ''Em:t 0094'' (Em:t Records, 1994)
* "Pluto" and "Odonna" on ''Plug In & Turn On x.2'' (Instinct Records, 1994)
* "Fourteen 33" on ''This is Acid Jazz: The Next Step'' (Instinct Records, 1995)
* "Fourteen Thirtythree" on ''Em:t 2295'' (Em:t Records, 1995)
* "Mould" on ''Em:t 5595'' (Em:t Records, 1995)
* "On Earth (Edit)" on ''Amberdelic Space'' (Dressed To Kill Records, 1996)
* "Giant Stroke" on ''Emit 1197'' (Em:t Records, 1997)
* "Deep Chamber" on ''Hybrids'' (Hypnagogia, 1998)
* "Dooshta" on ''Caribbean Eclipse'' (Flying Rhino Records, 1999)
* "Pondlife" on ''So Fa'' (Flying Rhino Records, 2002)
* "Ten Ton Dub" on ''Skunked on Planet Dub'' (Dubmission Records, 2010)
* "KanZeOn ReIndication: Woob" on ''KanZeOn ReIndication'' (No Label, 2011)
* "Omricon" on ''Magnatron 2.0'' (NewRetroWave Records, 2017)
Journeyman
* ''Mama 6'' (album, Ntone, 1994)
* ''National Hijinx'' (album, Ntone, 1997)
* ''50cc'' (EP, Ntone, 1997)
Max & Harvey
* ''Sleep'' (single, Ninja Tune, 2006)
* ''Amoeba'' (EP, Bigamoebasounds, 2010)
* ''Compendium'' (EP, Bigamoebasounds, 2011)
* ''Space Therapy (Woob Remixes)'' (Album, Bigamoebasounds, 2012)
See also
*
List of ambient music artists
This is a list of ambient music artists. This includes artists who have either been very important to the genre or have had a considerable amount of exposure (such as those who have been on a major label). This list does not include little-known ...
References
External links
Official Woob website*
Max & Harvey Website
{{Authority control
Living people
Ambient musicians
English electronic musicians
English record producers
English songwriters
Year of birth missing (living people)