Pete Rann

Pete Rann started his musical career after a school friend introduced him to the legendary Mike Allen hiphop/electro show on Capital radio back in 1985. This exciting new scene and sound of the golden era of hiphop of the latter part of the 80s inspired him to get a pair of Technics sl1210s and start djing. Whilst accumulating a large record collection with frequent trips to all the underground record shops such as Unity and Blackmarket, Pete was also exposed to the early house sounds of Chicago and Detriot. This lead to an interest also in Acid house, early bleep/euro Techno and early breakbeat sounds such as Shut up and dance and the like. From there the musical journey continued to early hardcore, jungle, drum and bass, electronica, Techno and hiphop. During this time Pete had been honing his mixing skills and started compiling many mix tapes. He managed to win a few competitions, one was a d+b mix for the legendary Eternity magazine. The next was for Muzik magazines` bedroom bedlam. A slot at the legendary Blue Note in London beckoned after another competition resulted with a set playing along side Nicky Blackmarket and finally a set at Movement in London. This all lead to stints playing various clubs and bars around the London area as well as numerous residencies in Brighton where he lived for some time including a stint of co-promoting a night with Stuart Cullan (aka Pilote on certificate 18 records) ,a hiphop/funk night at the legendary Jazz rooms and a long residency at an infamous after hours bar right on the seafront playing the musical d+b of the time ( around 95/96 ) Drawing inspiration from such clubs as Speed@Mars, Metalheadz Sunday sessions@ Blue Note and many clubbing experiences and the general music scene in Brighton. Pete turned his hand to production and purchased his first studio set up around 1997. Always being into the more musical styles of d+b from artists such as 4 -Hero, Ltj Bukem, Nookie, early Photek and the like, his first ideas were what can only be described as techno influenced breaks, he also started naturally to produce drum and bass. A chance demo to 720 label owner Blame after reading an interview in future music led to a very encouraging response. From there Pete knuckled down and spent many sleepless nights honing his studio techniques. His first release came in 2001 with a track entitled `Spiral Motion` for the downtempo label Tru-thoughts ran by Rob Luis whom Pete knew from his Brighton days. Now a bit more confident with his output, Pete sent a demo to LTJ Bukem. Surprisingly he received a phone call from the man himself `a most surreal experience` he adds ` I`d spent years watch Bukem on the decks, now I`m talking to him about life and signing tracks to Goodlooking!` His debut track `Free spirit` did very well and received rave reviews on its release as did `Abacus` and the Piano classic `mindfuel` on Looking Good. After good exposure into the scene through GLR, Pete continued to record for other similar labels including Fokuz and Camino Blue. Pete had a significant amount of output also with d+b and other genres on Stricly Digital, which was one of the first mp3 download sites catering for the more atmopsheric style of the genre,ran by d+b veteran Nookie. Pete is still producing his own recognisable style of d+b for other labels, more recently Vibez recordings and Keynote. He has been well known for making other styles of music including Nu Jazz/Broken beats, funky breaks and soundtrack induced pieces. He has also ventured into producing House/Techno and electronica, the first track made received support from Techno dons Vince Watson and Colin Dale. Pete is also learning the piano and aims to properly score his first proper piece sometime in the near future. Pete still spins regularly and has also been lucky enough to play along side some of the scenes biggest names as well as numerous gigs both home and abroad including Holland, Germany, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania and Austria. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.