Gaia UK
One of Brighton's finest Progressive Metal acts and winners of the 2019 "Metal 2 The Masses" (M2TM) competition.
We first formed in 2017 when when Jamie teamed up with
Olly Rybarzcuk (Guitarist) and Jack Woodward (former vocalist). While
the first pieces of material were being written Nick Tappenden and Jack
Lowe of Jamie's former band "Magnitude" joined on bass and drums
respectively. Influenced mainly by "Monuments", "The Contortionist" and
"Tesseract", our music has always been heavy progressive metal.
After
around 6 months, we had our first gig at Bar 42 in Worthing which is
our first highlight. However, the main highlights for us so far were
supporting "Monuments" and "Deity's Muse" at the Haunt in Brighton which
was easily our most attended show at the time. The atmosphere was
amazing and it was great to meet the other bands. Also, winning the
Metal 2 the Masses competition to play Bloodstock Open Air festival.
Again, the atmosphere was amazing, everyone there just had loads of fun
and of course we ended up winning the competition so it was all round a
great night for us. Maybe he biggest highlight for us so far would be
actually playing at Bloodstock. It was our first taste of this kind of
show and it was incredible.
Mike "Mikey D" Dennis - former DJ and engineer formed "Beyond Sane" for his experimental music projects in 2016 on a return to making music.
After finally discovering why I gradually lost interest in making music during the 1990s, It dawned on my recently that PC based recording had completely sapped my creativity. It has taken a long time for me to make the association and the penny only dropped when I rediscovered my old Yamaha QX5 sequencer.
The QX5 is not a typical pattern/song sequencer, but more of a performance recorder/editor and is very quirky to use and most people hate it!!. But it has a big red "record" button and that was the clue to what I had been missing.
Back in the 80s, when I had an idea, I'd just hit the record button and start playing - usually recording on some old second-hand tape recorder!! No re-booting, configuring, head scratching or any of that nonsense that came as baggage with the PC. I was never a skilled musician, but back then I enjoyed making my noise.
Another factor dawned on my during the present Covid pandemic: I create more when I have very limited options. The PC studio was like being a kid in a sweet-shop where everything is free, and that was its Achilles heel. You can do "anything" with a PC studio and plugins - and that (at least for me) leads to creative paralysis. I love modifying things, making things and creating workarounds that squeeze more out of something than it was intended for and that leads to new discoveries. This was something I was forced to do in the early 80s, because gear was so expensive and I was unemployed and poor.
For my latest project (during 2020/1) I am going right back to the beginning. Starting again with a toy Yamaha keyboard, a budget Squier Strat and an old Stellaphone Reel to Reel tape recorder from 1963 which, once I have it working, will be modified for simple overdubbing (plus of course the good ol' QX5 sequencer). And of course - No PC.
This is a "no pressure" exercise for me. It is only part time and what comes, comes - that's it. I will not be releasing any of my old recordings, in fact they reside on an old IDE hard disk stored somewhere and I couldn't even tell you where they are now, so it really is starting over, right back to basics and I really like it that way.
