Guess How Much I Love You

Magnétophone are an electronic / art-rock band originating from Birmingham UK, comprised of Matt Huish Saunders (b. January 5th 1972) and John Hanson (b. March 15th 1973). more...

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Since their inception in the mid-nineties they have released two albums, I Guess Sometimes I Need To Be Reminded Of How Much You Love Me and The Man Who Ate The Man, plus numerous singles and EPs and are currently signed to the revered art-house record label 4AD. Magnétophone rose to international recognition out of a period of vibrant musical activity in the second city, which also spawned contemporaries Broadcast.

Biography

Matt Huish Saunders and John Hanson formed Magnétophone in 1995 after they met at an art school on the outskirts of Birmingham in 1992. Their respective formative journeys toward their first gig together followed similar lines in that they both played in rock-influenced live bands.

Huish Saunders began experimenting with keyboards and computer soundchips (C64 SID chip in particular) around 1986, composing instrumental three voice music and sound effects. Inspired by rock'n'roll and the possibilities of audio 'art', in 1989 he took up his 'neighbour's neglected guitar' and began forming bands in the style of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, playing pubs and clubs around Birmingham city centre.

Hanson's first steps into music also began in the mid-eighties, and at the local community centre playing drums in the basement, in drop-in style workshops. Later, he discovered acoustic guitar and his 'first love', the bass, and went on to form bands also playing Led Zeppelinesque tracks.

Despite the similarity of their respective bands their paths didn't cross until 1992 when they enrolled on an art course at Solihull College. Here, they developed a friendship, sharing their enthusiasm for Spacemen 3, Suicide, Steve Reich, Talk Talk, Aphex Twin, Woody Allen, painting, printmaking and photography. At this time, both their bands simultaneously began to disintegrate leading them to form their own forward-looking experimental outfit 'Rocket Science'.

'Rocket Science's' first gig was at The Jug of Ale in Moseley, Birmingham. The duo played simple FM synthesis keyboards put through numerous guitar effects pedals, acoustic guitar, bass guitar and various tone generators and used a four-track recorder to playback a combination of processed found sounds, film dialogue, and distorted breakbeats. Their music at this early stage was instrumental and often repetitive, recalling the sounds of early techno-ambient albums by Aphex Twin, and the lush washes and zen-cycling of Eno. Performing music that required a certain level of calm and concentration on the part of the audience brought with it certain concerns: \"We were finding that the quieter tracks were getting talked over to the point where you'd feel like you may as well stop and get up and go to the bar with them. We found to get around this, we had to make our beats and sounds louder and fiercer, so it was harder to talk over.\"

Read more at Wikipedia.org