Stasis

Despite a fairly significant amount of work, Steve Pickton is still a special find. He's managed to find a consistent sound for his work that sat perfectly on Peacefrog Records alongside for instance, Dan Curtin. Mnemic Image is how I discovered him on Kiss FM years ago, with its mesmerisingly cool, summer night bassline, carefree soaring samples and 808. Really try anything, never over-produced or jarringly different, if you like one track you'll like the rest. Thanks Steve.

For the record and this is fact, not rumour. Steve Picton only ever recorded 1 track at Kirk Degiorgio's studio. The rest of his amazing output was recorded in his very own "Otherworld" studio, a studio where I'm sure you'd all agree, magical things took place, a studio where some of the best music ever produced was made.

Firstly, Steve Stasis (Picton) is a musical genius. You only have to to look and listen to his output under his various guises to realise this. I was lucky enough to be on the scene or thereabouts to have access to all of the master pieces that he and his comrades released. Rumour has it that Steve was allowed access to Kirk Degiorgio's studio and equipment and this was where he produced most of his finest work, this was until, for whatever reason, they had a falling out. My favourite ep is without question, the "Disco 4000" ep. This ep will take you to another place, it will give you an outer-body experience, absolutely mind-blowing.The rest, as they say, is history.

Stasis had a lower profile than the likes of B12, Black Dog and RDJ during the early-1990s UK electronic music days, but was extremely influential nonetheless. The Stasis name became almost synonymous with decent music, and he had fingers in many pies - from Phenomyna to B12 Records, from Likemind to Peacefrog, Stasis certainly got about.

Stasis has moved away from the electronic scene in recent years (a great loss!) and is now a hip-hop/R&B producer, putting his drum programming skills to good use. However he's still in touch with a few people, as his contribution to a recent Smallfish 7" demonstrates.

Back in the day, Stasis was one of the artists who you felt made music "for those who know", and is probably destined to remain a little-known phenomynon of the early 1990s outside us obsessives who drooled over shrink-wrapped 12"s back when Fat Cat was under that old clothes shop...