Alex Smith

Alex is 20 years old, currently located in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. He studied piano from grade school through high school with private teachers, and also plays bass. Creating electronic music using MIDI and MOD tracking software has been a hobby of his for years, but his music was never recorded and distributed until the summer of 1999. Alex writes, "The Cynic Project is a band on mp3.com I began to work on early in '99. When the dance track Matrix [now known as 'Grid'] hit #1 on the mp3.com music charts in November 1999, I built a home studio and started production on a CD. The first CD release, Soundscapes Sampler, was completed early in the year 2000. A Sidewinder single was released in the summer, and my latest CD :: Soundscapes 2000 :: was released in the fall of the same year."

"My inspiration for writing electronic music started by hearing Robert Miles' Children while on vacation in Paris. I soon discovered the genre 'trance' and was amazed. Currently some of my favorite artists include Lagoona!, DJ Encore and Engelina, ATB, Ayla, BT, Ferry Corsten, Chicane, DJ Tiesto, Lange, DJ Sakin, Tomski, Rank 1, Energy 52, Kosmonova, and Solar Stone."

Nathan David Carlton

Nathan David is a big fan of British rock music from 1974, the year he was born. Kate Bush and Joan Armatrading were early influences, as were T. Rex and Fleetwood Mac. Nathan went to the Minnesota Arts High School and wrote and produced two plays there, one of them a multimedia musical. He went on to graduate from Bard College (near Woodstock, NY) where he wrote FreeHand, a cyber-pop operetta, in 1996. After graduation Nathan cut his audio editing chops at the renowned Minneapolis recording studio Intuitive, specializing in recording and editing voice-over material for interactive multimedia. Recently he has taken to composition and sound design for small-venue theater and dance, as well as some producing/recording engineering for bands.

Currently Nathan works at a music software company and produces his own music in many styles, including trance and dance. Not one to sit on his arse, he also has a history of professional movement and dance roles in the Twin Cities experimental dance and theater community. His particular movement style is informed primarily by studying Contact Improvisation with master teachers such as Chris Aiken.