User:8 dogs

8 dogs is the project name of songwriter Thomas Krarup, who has been a musician ever since picking up a pair of drumsticks at the age of three. Thomas has composed soundtracks for Massive Music - [Nike, MTV, Audi, SEAT, and BMW among others], programmed synthesizers for Native Instruments - [Reaktor, FM7 / 8, Absynth, Vokator, Battery], and been a session drummer / recording engineer for Ken Abe - [Ryuichi Sakamoto, Parliament].

The music of 8 dogs is driven by soaring melodic lines which remain tinged with melancholy, lean, muscular drumming, visceral analog sequences, and tense, forcefully delivered vocals - an amalgam of indie-esque power pop, metal, and sinewy funk that draws it’s inspiration as much from the sounds of vintage radio equipment, old synthesizers, and the visions these invoke - the faint, distant luminescence emitted by oscilloscopes and sonar screens, vast, dimly gleaming cloudbanks, altitudes remote and immeasurably high - as it does from purely musical influences which range from Muse, Stevie Wonder, Isao Tomita, Mew, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Billy Cobham to Dir En Grey, Mnemic, Killing Joke, and Slipknot.

One aim of the music is to re-emphasise the importance of sound itself as a communicative medium. To regard it as being separate from, or of less value than, other components of music such as melody, harmony, phrasing, etc., leads to a diminution of the power of music overall, and results in a laziness of approach to composition. In contrast to this, the ethic of 8 dogs is characterized by a rigorous attention to detail and sonic innovation - working with a small number of unique, self-made and vintage synthesizers & audio processors, and no third-party samples or manufacturer’s presets - in which intensity, breadth and density of sound are coupled with precision and conciseness. An analogy might be to imagine oneself caught within the descent of an immense waterfall, yet being able to hear the passage of even the tiniest drop with absolute clarity - a compound of discipline and abandon, lucidity and madness ; in short, the beauty of detonation.