| Germany's Kptmichigan (Michael Beckett) is an exploritory guitarist who chooses a variety of diverse musical ideas.
Currently Michael is part of Schneider TM's live group (they met in 1996 when Michael was touring with his band, Tuesday Weld, & Schneider was touring with his band, Hip Young Things) as well as the band Beautiful New Born Children.
Together, he & Schneider TM released a record on City Slang which included a hit cover of The Smith's 'There is a light that never goes out', which gained them international recognition. For the record, that release was a collaboration, although press has seemed happy to date with only giving credit to TM.
Tuesday Weld eventually broke up, leaving Michael without a band & a bitterness towards rock music. He started messing around with a sampler and a groovebox. This eventually would lead to the creation of 'Hey Love', his 1st record as Kptmichigan. This Kpt. record is the one most inspired by electronic music, which is ironic, as it was recorded entirely onto a 4 track.
As 2001 rolled around, Kpt was feeling bored of the clinical, hi-fi ness of electronic music, which he states as having 'no sex & a major lack of attitude'. 'Player, Player' his debut Aesthetics release, was created with only a 400 mhz/64 mb PC along with some other gear. 'Player, Player' is loud, dirty (with hissing throughout) & sexy (the occurances of Jamican frequencies). Kpt describes it as 'my statement against the general poo that was going on around me'. It ends with a prophetic song about a man who was about to destroy the U.S. & the rest of the planet.
Over the years he has remixed tracks from: Calexico, Tennis, Shinsei & Schneider TM, and has tracks on compilations on Mute, Kraak3 & Tigerbeat6.
He is presently working on a collaborative record with Belgium's Kohn (Kraak3) which will release in 2005, and is producing an album for Mek Obaam (Christian of Schneider TM experience). |