Hexstatic are an English

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

duo, consisting of Stuart Warren Hill and Robin Brunson, that specializes in creating "quirky audio visual electro." Formed in 1997 after Hill and Brunson met while producing visuals at the Channel 5 launch party, they decided to take over for the original members of the

Ninja Tune Ninja Tune is an independent record label based in London, with a satellite office in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1990 by musicians Matt Black and Jonathan More, known collectively as Coldcut. The label was established as an outlet for Col ...

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

collective

Hex Hex usually refers to: * A curse or supposed real and potentially supernaturally realized malicious wish * Hexadecimal, a base-16 number system often used in computer nomenclature Hex, HEX, or The Hex may also refer to: Magic * Hex sign, a b ...

that had disbanded around the same time. They soon collaborated with

Coldcut Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the 1980s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, ...

for the Natural Rhythms Trilogy, including the critically acclaimed A/V single "

Timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

". Much of their music involves integrated visual experiences, and both of their main album releases have been CD and

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

combinations; the latest, Master-View, includes 3D " anaglyph" versions of some of their

music videos A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

and comes packaged with 3D glasses. Hexstatic has also been instrumental in designing VJ equipment, including the

Pioneer DVJ-X1 A CDJ is a specialized digital music player for DJing. Originally designed to play music from compact discs, many CDJs can play digital music files stored on USB flash drives or SD cards. In typical use, at least two CDJs are plugged into a DJ m ...

professional

DVD player A DVD player is a machine that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...

. Other artists they have worked with include

Kris Menace Kris Menace (born Christoph Hoeffel) is a German DJ, record producer, remixer. History Christophe Hoeffel began to work as a producer and writer in the mid-1990s for different projects and started using the pseudonym "Kris Menace" in 2005. Mena ...

, EBN,

Juice Aleem Juice Aleem is an English rapper. Biography After putting years of energy into the Birmingham hip hop scene, Juice's "Ghetto Grammer" freestyle rap sessions started featuring such other future stars as Ty, Skinnyman and MPHO. In 1996 Will Ash ...

and

David Byrne David Byrne (; born May 14, 1952) is an American musician, writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He was a founding member, principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American New wave music, new wave band Talking Heads. Byrne has ...

Talking Heads Talking Heads were an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in 1975.Talking Heads

History

The current Hexstatic duo of Stuart Warren Hill and Robin Brunson have been together since 1997. Before that time Stuart Hill had been producing visuals for the Big Chill Festival. and had a visuals company called SP Visuals with Pod Bluman. Brunson had been working in computer animation and producing and DJing for Skint records offshoot Under 5's as Rareforce. Both wanted to combine their video talents with music. They gradually took over for the original

group which consisted of graphic design artists Robert Pepperell and Miles Visman and

members Matt Black and Jonathan More.

Hex

This first version, known simply as

, fused an interest in computer programming and animation with their talent for video design and knowledge of club culture to create a range of multimedia projects. In 1990, they produced music videos for artists such as The Fall and

Queen Latifah Dana Elaine Owens (born March 18, 1970), known professionally by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American rapper, singer, and actress. She has received various accolades, including a Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe ...

as well as graphics for television stations. Also that year they created the first pop music video created entirely on home micro computers (

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

, etc.) for "Coldcut’s Christmas Break." In 1991, they released the video game " Top Banana" along with a 12" single mix of the game's sound track. A year later they included the game along with

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

visuals,

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often ...

and

ambient music Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes Musical tone, tone and atmosphere over traditional Musical form, musical structure or rhythm. Often "peaceful" sounding and lacking Musical composition, composition, beat, and/or structured melod ...

all on one

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

billed as a "multi dimensional future entertainment product." The group continued to put out interactive

and

CD-I The Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I, later CD-i) is a digital optical disc data storage format as well as a hardware platform, co-developed and marketed by Dutch company Philips and Japanese company Sony. It was created as an extension of CDDA ...

titles throughout the mid nineties. During this time they also performed live visuals for clubs and chillouts. Their final contribution came in 1997, when they helped create the

version of Coldcut's Let Us Play! album which featured tracks by its own offspring Hexstatic.

officially disbanded in 1999 due to internal tensions.

Natural rhythms trilogy

Prior to meeting Brunson at the Channel 5 launch party in 1997, Stuart Warren Hill had begun working on the Natural Rhythms Trilogy, a collaborative effort with

and

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of Environmental movement, environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its biod ...

. Stuart approached

asking for use of their stock footage of wildlife and logging operations and in return

could use the finished project in their campaigns and presentations. The first video was 1997's ''Frog Jam'', which created a rhythmic structure out of short clips of water dripping, frog leaping and tribal drumming and chanting. This was soon followed by ''Natural Rhythm'' and ''Timber''. Natural Rhythm featured insects, birds and other wildlife as well as a tribesman playing a flute like instrument. Each video employed increasingly more complex mixing and splicing techniques culminating with the award-winning Timber. Its tone is more plaintively political, opening with majestic images of the sunset over a forest of immensely beautiful trees then quickly shifting with a clap of thunder to a

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

button punching out the dots and dashes of a

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

SOS SOS is a Morse code distress signal (), used internationally, originally established for maritime use. In formal notation SOS is written with an overscore line (), to indicate that the Morse code equivalents for the individual letters of "SOS" a ...

distress call. Images of powerful

circular saw A circular saw or a buzz saw, is a power-saw using a toothed or Abrasive saw, abrasive disk (mathematics), disc or blade to cut different materials using a rotary motion spinning around an Arbor (tool), arbor. A hole saw and ring saw also use ...

s, chopping axes, and huge, buzzing

chainsaw A chainsaw (or chain saw) is a portable handheld power saw, power saw that cuts with a set of teeth attached to a rotating chain driven along a guide bar. Modern chainsaws are typically gasoline or electric and are used in activities such as t ...

s soon follow. The picture then distorts and images of the indigenous animals appear to the singing of a mournful native woman. The anti-

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal and destruction of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. Ab ...

message is quite clear even before the industrial machinery makes its appearance towards the end of the track. Timber won the award for Best Editing Video Musique in France in 1998 and appeared on Coldcut's 1997 release Let Us Play!.

Studio releases and advancement of the AV genre

Hexstatic released their first full-length CD in 2000. Entitled ''

Rewind Rewind may refer to: General uses * Rewind, the process of winding magnetic tape inside a cassette or a microfilm reel backwards to a previous point on the reel ** Rewind symbol, a media control symbol indicating tape rewind or analogous operatio ...

'', it was packaged with a 2nd CD-ROM disc that contained videos for each of the album's 11 tracks. The music is similar to

and has an electro infused sound that reviewer Bob Bannister terms a combination of "

South Bronx The South Bronx is an area of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

ndthe avant-

Eurodisco Eurodisco (also spelled as Euro disco) is a genre of electronic dance music that evolved from disco in the middle 1970s, incorporating elements of pop music, pop and rock music, rock into a disco-like continuous dance atmosphere. Many Eurodisco ...

sound of

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...

." The album was created over a two-year period on two 100 MHz Macs that were barely switched off during the production; one 30-second siren sound at the beginning of the track "Machine Toy", took three days to render. For the video track "Deadly Media", Stuart Warren Hill recorded news broadcasts from around the world off of a satellite feed and cropped everything but the newscasters’ mouths to build a random cacophony of voices out of which the spliced-together phase "deadly media" emerges. ''

Solid Steel ''Solid Steel'' are a series of DJ mix albums issued on Ninja Tune, an independent record label in the UK. ''Solid Steel'' also has a radio station webcast and related live concerts which further showcase the DJing talents of such artists. In 1 ...

Presents Hexstatic - Listen and Learn'' was their next project. Released in 2003, it was a mix album produced by Robin Brunson of many of the tracks that influenced Hexstatic's own sound. It featured time stretching techniques made possible by the newest CD mixing technology. In contradiction to many DJ purists who only use vinyl, Hexstatic (and

before them) have consistently demonstrated a willingness and even a passion for bleeding edge technologies. In 2004, they consulted with Pioneer on the production of the first DVD turntable with tempo control, the DJV-X1. This machine has the ability to live mix audio and video in the same way one would a simple audio disc. For '' Master-View'', Hexstatic continued to innovate by creating 3D anaglyph videos for six of the tracks on the DVD portion of the CD/DVD combo release. The single, "Salvador", which features footage of people dancing in the streets of

Salvador, Brazil Salvador () is a Brazilian municipality and capital city of the state of Bahia. Situated in the Zona da Mata in the Northeast Region of Brazil, Salvador is recognized throughout the country and internationally for its cuisine, music, and arch ...

, was voted Best Music Video for 2004 at the

Portobello Film Festival The Portobello Film Festival is an independent international film festival based in London, which annually premiers over 700 new films, including feature films, features, short films, shorts, documentaries, music films, and animation. Additionall ...

. The band's involvement with current technological development has not lessened its infatuation with older technologies. As can be seen from the '' Speak & Spell'' game on the cover of '' Listen & Learn'', the

Sinclair ZX80 The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer launched on 29 January 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. (later to be better known as Sinclair Research). It is notable for being one of the first computers available in the United Kingdom for less than a hu ...

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

on ''

'' and the

View-Master View-Master is the trademark name of a line of special-format stereoscopes and corresponding View-Master "reels", which are thin cardboard disks containing seven Stereoscopic 3-D pairs of small transparent color photographs on film.Mary Ann & Wo ...

on '' Master-View'', Hexstatic clearly have a penchant for gadgets from the 1970s and 1980s. They have stated that the

vector graphics Vector graphics are a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector displ ...

they have used in some of their videos were inspired by the

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily game of skill, games of skill and in ...

Battlezone. The samples and computerized vocals of tracks such as "Telemetron" and "Bass Invader" (a play on the

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Taito for Arcade video game, arcades. It was released in Japan in April 1978, with the game being released by Midway Manufacturing overseas. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed s ...

game) as well as the use of an

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridg ...

and a Casio V-L Tone on L-Virata, are also signifers of the

retro Retro style is imitative or consciously derivative of lifestyles, trends, or art forms from the past, including in music, modes, fashions, or attitudes. It has been argued that there is a nostalgia cycle in popular culture. Definition The term ...

tech

aesthetic Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,'' , acces ...

they cultivate. A mix CD '' Pick'n'Mix: An Assortment To Suit All Tastes'' was released in April 2006.

Sanctuary Records Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and is, as of 2013, a subsidiary of BMG Rights Management solely for reissues. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest ...

gave Robin Brunson access to its large back catalogue of works, resulting in an eclectic mix of

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

and

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

from artists as diverse as

Grandmaster Flash Joseph Robert Saddler (born January 1, 1958), known by his stage name Grandmaster Flash, is a Barbadian-American musician and DJ. He created a DJ technique called the Quick Mix Theory. This technique serviced the break-dancer and the rapper by el ...

The Kinks The Kinks were an English rock band formed in London in 1963 by brothers Ray Davies, Ray and Dave Davies, and Pete Quaife. They are regarded as one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s. The band emerged during the height of British ...

and the

Harry J Allstars Harry Zephaniah Johnson (6 July 1945 – 3 April 2013), known by the stage name Harry J, was a Jamaican reggae record producer. Biography Born in Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica, in 1945, Johnson started to play music with the Virtues as a bass p ...

. Hexstatic also released a bootleg CD/DVD set under the alias '' Exactshit'' (an anagram of Hexstatic). Featuring samples of popular hit songs, only 200 copies were made available at the Big Chill Music Festival 2003 and from the

online store. It has since been more broadly distributed through online

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...

. '' When Robots Go Bad'' was their next studio album and saw the duo pursue a more pop-electro sound that featured several vocalists including London based soul singer Sabirajade and Australian singer/rapper B+. It was released in 2007. ''Hexstatic presents Videos, Remixes and Rarities'', 2008, was a DVD and CD combo celebrating 10 years of the duos video and audio work. The DVD featured all of their best videos, some previously not available on DVD. The CD featured rare and unreleased tracks and remixes by Hexstatic. ''Hexstatic present Trailer Trax'' was a solo digital release by Robin Brunson and was given away for free via Bandcamp in Dec 2010. ''Holotronica'' is Stuart Warren-Hill's solo AV 3D project. The album was released August 2014, a visual collaboration with Tom Wall of Blinkin Lab. Stuart then needed a way to show 3D visuals to a large audience when performing his album live. After considering the Pepper's Ghost technique, he soon realised this was not a touring solution. Stuart then invented Holo-Gauze. A patented technology for holographic effects that supports stereoscopic 3D. The only gauze that can do this it is also ultra fine and highly reflective giving good screen gain and contrast and becoming invisible to the audience when correctly setup. Holotronica is now based in Bristol and supplying Holo-Gauze, holographic solutions, bespoke 3D content and visuals all over the world and can list clients such as Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Samsung and Eric Prydz.

Live performances

Since their art crosses a lot of boundaries they have performed at art galleries and cinemas as well as festivals and smaller clubs. After viewing ''Timber'',

asked Hexstatic to do the visuals for his performance at the 1998 Lisbon Expo. Since then they performed the first ever live AV gig at the Guggenheim in

Bilbao Bilbao is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the Provinces of Spain, province of Biscay and in the Basque Country (greater region), Basque Country as a whole. It is also the largest city proper in northern Spain. Bilbao is the List o ...

as well as at the

Pompidou Centre The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

in Paris and the

Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthies ...

in Los Angeles. In September 2005, they projected video on a huge water screen over the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

in London as part of the Thames Festival. They also have performed at the huge Electraglide

s in Japan before 10,000 people. They completed the world's first audio-visual album which was previewed at the onedotzero festival in London at the ICA. since then they have had a strong relationship and featured in many of the organisations events at home and abroad including Tokyo, Taipei and Stockholm. Notably, they performed a series of unlicensed "guerrilla gigs" in the streets of London on 10 March 2006 as part of promoting their single "Distorted Minds". They loaded up their equipment in a van and performed a 30-minute set projected on the wall of a local building in each of three sites that they had previously scouted out. The crowds of a couple hundred people each were generally well behaved and the brevity of the performances meant that Hexstatic were on their way to the next location before the police arrived. They escaped with only a single parking ticket.

Awards

*Best Editing Video Musique Awards, France 1998 "Timber" (with

) *Portabello Film Festival, Best Music Video 2004 "Salvador" *No.1 in Top 20 VJ vote DJ Magazine, October 2005 *Focal Awards 2008 - Award for Best Use of Footage in an Advertisement - Diesel 78: "Learn Disco Dance" -

Discography

LPs

*''

'' (22 August 2000) Ntone *''

Presents Hexstatic - Listen & Learn'' (11 February 2003)

(DJ mix album) *'' Master-View'' (11 October 2004)

*''Pick'n'Mix: An Assortment To Suit All Tastes'' (24 April 2006) Castle/Discotheque

(DJ mix album) *'' When Robots Go Bad'' (25 June 2007)

*'' Hexstatic presents Videos, Remixes, Rarities'' (Dec, 2008)

*'' Hexstatic present Trailer Trax'' (May, 2010) Lower Level

Singles and EPs

" (January 1998)

(12" - 5 audio tracks) (CD-Enhanced - 7 audio tracks + 5 videos) *"Vector EP" (June 2000) Ntone (12" - 4 audio tracks) *"Ninja Tune EP" (2000) Ntone (12" - 5 audio tracks) *"Telemetron (Solid Steel Promo)" (March 2003)

(10" - 4 audio tracks) *"Salvador" (2004)

(DVD - 3 tracks) (12" - 4 audio tracks) *"Distorted Minds" (14 March 2005)

(CD-Enhanced - 5 audio tracks + 3 videos) (12" - 4 audio tracks) *"Red Laser Beam" (2007)

(CD-4 audio tracks) (12" - 4 audio tracks)

'Exactshit' bootlegs

*'' Exactshit CD'' (2003) No Label (CDR - 16 audio tracks) *'' Exactshit DVD'' (2003) No Label (DVD - 10 video tracks) *'' Now That's What I Call Exactshit DVD 2'' (2006) No Label (DVD - 16 video tracks)

References

External links

Hexstatic.tv Official SiteInterview with Hexstatic
{{Authority control English electronic music duos English male musical duos Electronic music groups from London Trip hop groups Ninja Tune artists VJ (video performance artists)