Ceephax Acid Crew

Tags: Acid , electronic , idm

Ceephax Acid Crew (often simply credited as Ceephax) is a British acid house, and drum and bass electronic musician named Andy Jenkinson. Jenkinson is also known simply by the pseudonym Ceephax, which is a pun on the BBC teletext service Ceefax. He is the brother of Tom Jenkinson, AKA Squarepusher, and for a while he shared living quarters with Jonathan Taylor, AKA Global Goon.

Underground record labels Firstcask, Lo Records and Breakin' Records each released music by Ceephax (his first record released when he was 18 years old). The more famous Rephlex Records and even more famous Warp Records both released remixes of Squarepusher by Ceephax which sound nothing like the originals.

Piers Martin interviewed Ceephax in 2000: "In the earlier days when Tom lived at home, I always used to play about on his synths if he was out," Andy recalls. "Obviously Tom was doing loads of music and that was always inspiring, and one day it just clicked for me and I started doing music straight away."

On Mary Anne Hobbs's BBC Radio 1 show in 2003, Ceephax played unreleased songs. The only way to hear these is through bootlegs or the filesharing community Soulseek. Some of Ceephax's music is still only available as poorly recorded bootlegs.

In 2005 Andy Jenkinson acted in short comedy films by Philie T of Chelmsford.

Ceephax's music.
Ceephax's music between 1998 and 2003 took the sonic styles of vintage Roland drum machines TR-909, TR-606, Roland synthesizers TB-303, SH-101, Korg MS-20, and a Roland MSQ-700 sequencer. This music was recorded onto a 4-track cassette tape deck. The music was released on vinyl records and cassette tape. This primitive Acid House aesthetic and methodology countered the growing popularity of the computer music and compact disc releases of the time.

In 2003 Ceephax played songs live on BBC radio from a Commodore 64's SID sound chip, indicating a change in direction from Acid House to Chiptunes. He also releases drum and bass songs made on early Akai samplers with the clichÃ©d and copyrighted "Amen" breakbeat drum sample, again displaying an interest in 1980s and early 1990s dance music.

Andy has collaborated a number of times with his brother Jonny and Phillie T, all members of the Chelmsford Film Society, in comical side projects such as rap outfit The Odd Job Men and improvised blues project The Chelmsford Blues Explosion.

Discography.
Albums:

* (Untitled) with Drive Time bonus cassette - Firstcask (2000)
* Exidy Tours [as Ceephax] - Firstcask (2003)
* Ceephax Acid Crew - Breakin' Records (2003)
* Ceephax Acid Crew Part One - Breakin' Records (2003)
* Ceephax Acid Crew Part Two - Breakin' Records (2003)

EPs and Singles:

* Radiotin EP - Breakin' Records (1998)
* Bainted Smile EP - Breakin' Records (1998)
* Acid Quakers 1000 [as Ceephax] - Lo Recordings (2000)
* Acid Legacy EP - Breakin' Records (2003)
* Hardcore Wick / Acid Varsity Speciale - First Cask (2006)
* Hardcore Esplanade - Bug Klinik Records (2006)
* The Crisp Chronicles OST - Frederick (2006)

mp3s

* Ceephax Acid Crew Live @ WMF Club, Berlin, 1.25.01 - Live Bootleg encoded by CBrown (2001)
* Ceephax live on Mary Anne Hobbs's Breezeblock show on BBC 1 - Various bootlegs. (2004)
* Various - www.ceephax.co.uk (2005)
* Ceephax Acid Crew Live on Resonance 104.4 fm - Live Bootleg recorded 18th of April (2005)
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