Spooky
Charlie May and Duncan Forbes signed to Guerilla Records in January 1992 for their first single “Don’t Panic” under the name “Spooky”. From the release of their first single, Spooky went from strength to strength and by the end of the year had finished recording the debut album “Gargantuan”. From the moment of it’s release Gargantuan received widespread critical acclaim and became a landmark album of it’s time but still sounds as fresh today as it did then. Following a succuessful release in the UK for Gargantuan, licences were obtained around the world including IRS in America and Play it Again Sam in Germany and the Netherlands as well as Virgin in France.
Spooky then set about creating a live set up with which they could take “Gargantuan” to the live arena. Their first gig was to be at “Renaissance” at it’s original home in Mansfield, the gig was given the gig of the week in Melody Maker. The second was at Roskilde in Denmark , on stage after Jamiroquai which earnt them product licence for Scandinavia as well as a short tour of Denmark with Aphex Twin and Autechre. Over the next five years Spooky continued to expand their live concept over three UK tours as well as two european tours and took part in the Midi Circus alongside Orbital, Underworld, Aphex Twin and the Drum Club. They also played many festivals around Europe including Glastonbury, Roskilde, Lowlands, Sonoria, Esential, Earth Energy, Womad, Phoenix, Live Link and the ET Jam in Prague to name but a few.
They’ve remixed tracks for the likes of Ultramarine, William Orbit, Sven Vath, Lush, Natacha Atlas as well as various collaborations with other artists. Spooky were stopped in their tracks by the untimely demise of the Guerilla Label . Picking themselves up out of the ashes of Guerilla Records they eventually reappeared in a new guise with their own “Generic” label through A&M releasing a set of three Ep’s, one of which ( “Stereo”) became Radio One’s evening session single of the week.
The Ep’s were then followed by the album “Found Sound” with which Spooky obtained their highest critical acclaim. A twenty-five minute short film was made for parts of “Found Sound” and was given video of the year at MTV Europe. The film was made by Grant Gee who then went on to make videos for Radiohead. The film was displayed on a continuous loop outside the Pompadou centre in Paris as part of it’s re-opening display.>
After Found Sound Spooky spent several years pursuing separate projects. Charlie met Sasha in 1998 ( who had already used Little Bullet, William Orbit and Sven Vath Remixes and Schudelfloss a track they produced for Dr Atomic on his Northern Exposure 1 & 2 and Renaissance compilations with John Digweed). The two collaborated on a range of projects including the soundtrack to Wipeout 3 for playstation and Xpander (Xpander was a reworking of a Spooky track that was part of the Spooky live set but had never been released) and Scorchio ep’s both of which attained top 40 positions in the UK. The culmination of this period of collaboration resulted in the album “Airdrawndagger” in 2003. Charlie and Sasha continue to work closely on various recordings including the recent “Involver” album on Global Underground.
Duncan began working on a new album on his own. He then joined up with Laurant Webb and together they completed the album “Tempting Fate” under the name Animated. Skelectro – the first Animated 12” was released on Dust 2 Dust records. Tempting Fate was released in 2000 on Deviant Records and the singles Wired, Container No.2 (which included an animated video made by the artist Mark Wigan) and “Grab The Rope . Animated remixes from Tempting Fate appeared on compilations from Lee Burridge, DJ Garth, James Lavelle and Cafe Mambo. 2003 saw the release of “Quivver” a 4 track vinyl only ep again on Deviant with tracks appearing on Cafe Mambo and James Zabiela’s Sound in Motion compilation.
In 2002 Spooky began working together again and later that year “Belong” was released on Deviant records and received much airplay by day as well as night on Radio 1 in the UK . John Digweed included one of the mixes on his compilation MMII. Sasha then remixed Belong and included it on his Global Underground Cd “Involver”.
2005 saw them team up with Sasha at their studio in London and together they did 2 remixes of Depeche Mode’s single Precious – they were released as Sasha’s Spooky and Gargantuan mixes.
The band have been playing live again since the beginning of May 2006, with their first gig for many years covering for Sasha at La Mania in Constanta (Romainia) on the Black Sea. They then toured all over Europe with Sasha throughout the summer and continued touring on their own throughout the winter. Highlights of the years gigs were Space in ibiza, Arnele Romania in Bucharest with Sasha and Digweed, the Warehouse Project in Manchester.
2007 has already been a busy year for Spooky with gigs so far in Russia, Canada, USA, South America, Scandinavia, France Hungary and the UK – they released their third studio album Open on June 18th with the 4th single from the album “New Light” around the same time. The final single from Open, “Shelter” released October 9th. The album has been very well received and is continuing to win fans around the world.
They recently completed a covermount cd for DJ magazine and have been touring throughout the year as well as keeping busy in the studio doing remixes for other artists as well as working on new material for themselves.
Spooky will tour the USA and Canada with Sasha throughout October.
They have co-written the first 3 releases on Sasha’s new label Emfire and are working on new material with him in New York.
This year has seen them do remixes for Chymera on Ovum, Guy J and Sahar on Whoop / Kinky Vinyl , Soul Mekanik on RIP records.
2008 will see them touring all over the world and they will release a new EP called Candy in January. There are plans for a new album based around their live / DJ sets to be released later in the year.
