I was born sometime in 1996, the rabid son of Musik Desperashun and Cassy Fortrak. It went something like this:

Conception — late 1995
I bought my first piece of gear: a huge clunker of a four track. I bought a crappy mic and started sampling from TV and B-movies. Everything else was bass. Tracks included Kill the Ghoul and Cocksucker Residence (“… and then he said, ‘can I have some candy Barbara?’ And… we didn’t have any.”) Yet to be released…

Childhood — 1996
François. A damn good drummer. With just drums and a bass, we made tracks like ‘scuse me please, and Ef. Like the rest of our songs, we never had a name.

Adolescence — 1996-1998
François and I met Stephen. Together we formed beauventure, a 3 piece chaotic mess of ricocheting audio ramblings. From country to noise, no voice will ever match that of Stephen’s. Projects included:
(Der Kung-Fu Toast Konsumption’s) Wrong Number — A slothful thirty minute toast eating experiment interrupted by 3 minutes of audio chaos (“… please check the number and dial again…”)
The Kitchen Set — Field recordings, pitched CD skips, 2 toy organs, 1 violin, 1 tin whistle, a stack of plates, a bunch of cups, a few light bulbs, the making of coffee and toast… we consumed, conversed, smashed plates and generally made a mess, audio and otherwise.
Two Intersections and a Hair Cut — One chord, one old metal tar drum, guitar, bass, Casio, and field recordings. And a hair cut.

After dropping my writing aspirations in 1997 (I managed to offend every single person in my creative writing class), I attended Simon Fraser University (SFU) where I enrolled in the School of Communication’s Electro-acoustic Composition courses. I discovered the joy of gear and I never turned back (money became a constant struggle). Engineering school came next, and on the first day in the studio they told us feedback was bad. They were wrong and I knew it. In fact, it was here that Coin Gutter’s first two tracks were edited and mixed. Rock school just didn’t understand (“I, uh, I’m not sure how to mark this… ”).

So after beauventure, there was solo work again (tracks like Brain, Y2K [Lying on the Kitchen Floor with a Blender Near My Head], and procession, as well as collaborative efforts such as talk radio). And just when I’d given up ever finding another musical companion, Graeme played me a piece from an old band of his, Arts and Krafts. It did not match his CD collection. Not long after, we decided to pool resources (not CD collections) and Coin Gutter was born. With the release of our first CD-r promo, I made my first tentative steps into adulthood.

Adulthood — 2000 —?
3 CDR’s, 1 full length release, 2 Canadian tours, 2 film scores, audio post for 2 films and 1 animated short, 2 film/audio collaboration/installations and 3 collaborative works with modern dancers including lullabye, available on our No Type release All Your Dreams Are Meaningless.

In the works? A short film (score and audio post), a collaborative art installation for the desert, Mutek 2003, more audio ramblings, better nail polish, and world domination.

[iii-04]