Static Distortion Presents: Defeat

RELEASES:



BIO: 
Defeat are Gary Walker and Anthony Matthews, two school friends who have known each other since their early teens. The pair discovered a similar taste in music and started writing songs together while still at secondary school, but it wasn't until Ant was at college that things got started in earnest, and they began writing and gigging sporadically in 1992 under the banner of "Seek Help", until a particularly troublesome gig caused the pair to re-evaluate the project and re-launch it as "Defeat".
Things really got going for the pair mid-way through 2011. Being spurred on losing his mother to cancer, Gary started reworking songs to have a cleaner, harder sound. Also, the mantra of "life is too short" came to the fore as did the determination to make something of "Defeat". Also the advent of technology now meant that the exchange of ideas was no longer limited to a couple of evenings a week jamming ideas at Gary's house.
The first step in re-energising Defeat was entering the track "Outburst" to a Side-line.com compilation competition. The track didn't win the contest, but it opened a door that was to change things...
Early in 2012, head of SDR Steve Fearon contacted the guys expressing an interest, and shortly after, Defeat signed to SDR in the spring of 2012.
At this stage the duo were putting the finishing touches to four tracks that went on to be released as the Outbursts! EP in July 2012. The EP was met by very favourable reviews, and bought the duo to the attention of the UK Industrial scene at large.
A remix compilation followed, with remixes of the tracks "Outburst" and "Parasite" taken from the Outbursts! EP. Their debut album [Seek Help] was released in June 2013, again to very favourable reviews and this summer also saw the duo open the Cybersonik festival in London –their first gig at the (in)famous Slimelight club in London.
As 2014 beckons, the traditionally "difficult" second album looms large on the horizon, but it is a challenge that Defeat will meet head on and at full steam ahead...

LINKS:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Defeatmusic/info

VIDEO:

What is 'Love'?

WHAT IS LOVE? (BABY DON'T HURT ME)

So it is that most divisive of days on the calendar…

ST VALENTINES DAY!

Regardless of your position on the validity of such a day, lets talk about love.

Don’t worry this isn’t going to be some mushy monologue about romance and whatnot.

Instead, lets talk about music and the love of it.

I have been in love with music since I was probably about 14 years old when I bought ‘Smash’ by the Offspring and it blew my mind, it was so different to what I had grown up with, or heard on the radio…It spoke to my teen angst in a way that I believe changed me significantly.

MANY YEARS LATER: Whilst my tastes have changed, music remains a driving force in my life, playing a massive part in my personal and professional life…as a music fan, musician and Label owner.

But why do we do it? Why do we spend so much of our money on a collection of structured sound waves, either collecting them or making them?

As any musician will tell you, its not to get rich…that is a 1 in a million shot.

Is it for fame?

I don’t think so; there are easier ways to get famous and certainly cheaper/easier ones.

Why does that kid sit in his room practicing guitar licks for 4 hours a day? Why does that 30 something guy keep getting in that van and playing shitty pub gigs to 20 people? Why does that couple spend every penny they earn to follow their favourite artist around the country on their tour?

I wish I could tell you but I am as bamboozled as to the significance of music as anyone, but I will say one thing…I am glad I have it in my life!

I would love to hear about your stories and your relationship with music, so please comment and let me know!!!

For those of you that are fans of valentines and are looking to spend the evening with your special one, here is the awesome track ‘A Spark In The Air’ by MiXE1:



For those that would rather the whole thing just went away and shut up, here is ‘Parasite’ by Defeat:


PS. Message to the Missus, happy valentine’s day Kathy ;)

Making music for the fiscally challenged By Gary Walker (Defeat)

Making music for the fiscally challenged - a case for using "freebies" By Gary Walker (Defeat)

To many (i.e. most) of us electronic musicians, I suspect that cost is one of major factors that governs the gear we buy and the software and plug-ins we use.

To borrow a phrase from Family Guy's Peter Griffin, what really "grinds my gears" is that some folk out there (usually "pros" who wouldn't think twice about dropping a ton of cash for a Macbook pro or a very expensive suite of plug-ins) still think that for serious music making you need to spend serious amounts of money and use serious gear, hand-made by nymphs and delivered via unicorn.

OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but the cost of some gear is frankly beyond the reach of most of us mere mortals who have day-jobs and families to support and don't have the luxury of making a living from making music.

The point I'm trying to make is this: for a long time, I've beaten myself up that I'm not using Kontakt, Nexus, or whatever the current VST-du-jour is.

After agonizing over the fact I may not be using the "right" synth for a bass part or the wrong drum plug-in, I'm now at the point now where I actually no longer care and I tend to use free VSTs alongside those that are part of my DAW.

This is not to say I'm the modern embodiment of Ebeneezer Scrooge - far from it - I've found that ploughing my own furrow this way has allowed me to find my own sound, rather than sound like “everyone else". It has also forced me to be more creative and experiment, and I find myself creating my own sounds from scratch rather than relying on presets.

There is a lot of great free stuff out there to be found for us impoverished musicians to use, so I urge all of my fellow musicians to see what free treasures you can unearth and use on your next masterpiece - seek and ye shall find!

Thanks to Gary for his thoughts!

For those of you that haven't checked out Gary's act 'Defeat' yet, check this out!

Defeat's Outburst EP and their free to download Remix album can be found here!