The Murky World of Artist Pseudonyms

The Murky World of Artist Pseudonyms

5 March, 2010 | 2.00AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News:

In the beginning there was Jack—except that probably wasn’t his real name.

Since the days of disco, aliases and pseudonyms have played an integral role in dance-music culture.

Often adopted for practical reasons—for instance, to allow artists under contract to one label to record elsewhere under a different name—they quickly became key factors in the ways that electronic-music culture makes meaning.

Taking a cue from the Electrifying Mojo, whose radio handle might have been a secret password to come aboard the Mothership, Detroit techno’s pioneers adopted aliases that emphasized human-machine interfaces: Cybotron, Model 500, Channel One, Electric Soul, Rhythim Is Rhythim, X-101.

They didn’t just pick a name and stick with it, either: from the beginning, techno nomenclature was a labyrinth of hidden passages and dead ends. It was a secret code that only the most clued-in could crack. It was a game, but it had serious implications: all those masks and fake identities were intended as a refusal of the way pop music was “supposed” to work.

Underground Resistance, ‘Codebreaker’

More radical than even punk, which depended upon the outsized personalities of its stars, techno’s shapeshifting originators often worked in direct opposition to established norms of pop-music celebrity. The most militant were Underground Resistance, a masked crew that answered the question of what you’d get if you equipped the Zapatista army with a battery of drum machines. In Europe, meanwhile, Basic Channel shrouded their identities in a fog of shifting aliases and overlapping label projects, and they made music to match, vaporizing techno into a cloud of unknowing.

The anonymous impulse remains strong today, of course: Burial, Redshape, and Oni Ayhun are just three examples of underground musicians who keep their real names firmly under wraps. (Well, Burial did, anyway, at least until a British tabloid threatened to unmask him, spurring him to come out on his own.) With old-school techno nostalgia setting in, anonymity has become fashionable again: Ancient Methods, Frozen Border, Horizontal Ground, and Traversable Wormhole are among the many shadowy entities to recently break upon the scene bearing hand-stamped white labels that leave most questions unanswered. And it’s not just in techno: the housier Shimmy Sham Sham, Story, and John Talabot aren’t about to give you a peek at their driver’s licenses, either.

There are those of you that will say “But none of this matters, it’s all about the music, maaaan"—to which, fair enough. But I’ve always seen dance music’s pseudonyms as akin to cover art—a key part of electronic music’s system of symbols, not to mention an entertainment in their own right. In the interest of finding a kernel of truth in the fake-name shell game, I reached out to a handful of musicians known for being particularly promiscuous with their AKAs.

Ewan Pearson

When did you first decide to start using an alias, and why? Are there any hidden meanings to the names you chose?

I used an alias for my first ever dance release. It was a track called “Motorcade” which I released as Villa America—it came from a painting that a friend sent me a postcard of. Since then I’ve been part of Dirtbox, Maas, Sulky Pup, World of Apples and Partial Arts. Some of them were jokes, some inspired by literary faves. Maas is the surname of the heroine of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and World of Apples was the name of my studio—so named after a short story collection by John Cheever and the fact that it was run on Apple Macs.

It was the thing to do, really, at the time. Very very few people put dance tracks out under their own name—that was much more of an earnest singer-songwriter thing to do. Also it enabled you to be playful, put different styles out under different aliases.

Maas, ‘Powers of Ten’

At what point did you transition to using your own name? Why?

There were a few different factors for me. One was the fact that Timo Maas became so big—which pissed me off but it’s his own name so not really anything I could do about it!  So I decided to retire that. And there was also the realisation that people didn’t know that I had been responsible for all the things I’d done—they weren’t joining the dots. And at a certain point I thought maybe I should start using my own name more if I wanted to have a career. So I started doing remixes under my actual name and DJ mix compilations. But there’s never been a “Ewan Pearson” track released apart from my collaboration with Hafdis Huld a few years ago.

Today, with Discogs.com, it’s harder and harder to keep anything secret in the electronic-music world. Have you ever attempted to keep any of your identities a secret?

Well as I said earlier, people often didn’t make the connections. So it wasn’t that I tried to keep my involvement a secret as such, but people used not to be able to look things up quite so easily as they can now.

When you were recording under other names, did you generally know which of your aliases you were making music for, or did you wait to hear how the material turns out before deciding which project it fits best? Have you ever created a new alias because you wanted to start making a new style of music?

I somtimes knew and then sometimes it only became clear after the track was finished. And I did come up with World of Apples because I had tracks left over from writing my Maas album for Soma that felt different and like they needed their own project identity.

I often think of DJ aliases as being akin to superheroes’ names. Did your aliases give you any special powers?

I certainly think that when you start to build up an idea around an artist name it can accrue its own rules, characteristics and identity, and the ability to swap between them and be a little more playful is fun.

You’ve been Ewan Pearson for a while now – do you ever consider trying out a new secret identity?

Maybe I already have…

Matthew Dear

How many different names do you currently record under, and how many have you used throughout your career?

Matthew Dear - Birth name, alive and well.
Audion - Floor pleasing techno. The bigger stuff.
False - Deeper and more twisted techno.
Jabberjaw - Quirky house and phosphorescent jams.
Fran - An acoustic project of strained folk roots. Never released.

When did you first decide to start using an alias, and why? Are their any hidden meanings to the names you chose?

Fran was my first alias. Came to it around 1998 I would guess. I’d ad lib shows in Ann Arbor with an acoustic guitar. The recorded material is also done ad lib. I found early on that creating through an alias allowed for more experimentation. I didn’t feel limited by an id.

Matthew Dear is my real name. I wasn’t given a middle name. My mother really expected a girl, so it was going to be Courtney. They came up with Matthew on the spot once they saw my parts.

When you sit down to write music, do you generally know which of your aliases you’re making music for, or do you wait to hear how the material turns out before deciding which project it fits best? Have you ever created a new alias because you wanted to start making a new style of music?

My productive moods tend to shift by the month, so I usually have an idea of who I want to be. It’s been a lot of “Matthew Dear” lately since I’ve been finishing up the new album.

How do you decide when it’s time to retire a given alias, or do you keep them all in play? Have any of your aliases become too successful to kill off, even if you’d like to?

Nothing has been retired yet. It took about 4-5 years between Jabberjaw releases. I toured as Audion quite a bit last year and feel the need to step away from it for a while. Let the dirt settle, before approaching it again.

Jabberjaw, ‘A Goat on Fire in the Garden of Eden’

Has there been any downside to recording under an alias?

Not really. The early Audion material was very aggressive and very broad. It took a while for people to realize that I didn’t want the newer Audion to be as menacing.

Do people ever address you using your assumed name? Is that weird?

Not yet. Guess it’s good having my real name as my first released project. People got to know me through that music.

I often think of DJ aliases as being akin to superheroes’ names. Do your aliases give you any special powers?

Ha… They would all make some sort of tragic superhero group wouldn’t they? Fighting boring dancefloors around the world, saving everyone from injustice.

Mike Paradinas

How many different names do you currently record under, and how many have you used throughout your career?

I’ve taken a break from music making, so currently I’m just “me”, but I have released records under eight different names: µ-Ziq, Frost Jockey, Gary Moscheles, Jake Slazenger, Kid Spatula, Rude Ass Tinker, Tusken Raiders, and Mike Paradinas.

How has the use of aliases served as a creative tool for you? Has it let you create characters to correspond to certain musical ideas, for instance?

That sort of evolved with the Jake Slazenger thing I think, I certainly started putting the more flavoursome compositions under that name, but the music came first.

Once I had the alias I could write for it, but that kind of destroyed it for me, as the music wasn’t coming enough from the heart anymore, I think.

Kid Spatula, ‘New School Bikes’

When did you first decide to start using an alias, and why? Are there any hidden meanings to the names you chose? How have you decided when to use your own name?

Well, I think I decided on µ-ziq very early on, no one really used their names in those days. It made it more “our thing”. Less rock, I think. The first alias I used was I think Tusken Raiders just because Tom [Middleton] and Mark [Pritchard] had used Jedi Knights for the first Clear Records release, and I wanted to have a name that fit in with that image of the label for their second release.

Jake Slazenger was something I came up with my mates. We had to think of a different name because I was signing µ-ziq to virgin at that time and they wanted exclusivity.

It seems like artists in the Planet Mu/Rephlex/Warp universe have been particularly promiscuous with their identities. What is it about that scene that led to such a creative (even manic) approach to adopting pseudonyms?

I think early on, 89-93, there was a perception (mine) that electronic music could wipe away the old paradigm. These identities were a way of rejecting careerism, and also of introducing mystery, making it about the music again.

In these days of the internet, you can easily find out who was who but at the time it did give you a rush if there were hundreds of new 12s by weird artist names. I’m thinking of Reinforced etc., I guess… But people like Model500, Rhythim Is Rhythim, Detroit guys, they generally had aliases I think? And only when they started getting canonised and DJing in the ‘90s their names got well known. Maybe I’m wrong.

When you sit down to write music, do you generally know which of your aliases you’re making music for, or do you wait to hear how the material turns out before deciding which project it fits best? Have you ever created a new alias because you wanted to start making a new style of music?

For me the alias comes after the music. When I tried writing for an alias, I made the second Jake Slazenger album, which personally I wasn’t as happy with…

Today, with Discogs.com, it’s harder and harder to keep anything secret in the electronic-music world. Have you ever attempted to keep any of your identities a secret?

Yeah, with Frost Jockey. I managed to keep it a secret for a few years until I let it out on a forum. So it’s still possible. It was a different style for me, so no-one really guessed. But therefore it didn’t sell any either.

How do you decide when it’s time to retire a given alias, or do you keep them all in play? Have any of your aliases become too successful to kill off, even if you’d like to?

I think the Jake Slazenger thing kind of ran its course. But now with the stuff like Joker and Swindle I’m inspired to give it a go again… if I can get the time and inclination…

Has there been any downside to using so many pseudonyms? Do you ever wish that you’d kept things a little simpler?

I do wish I had never used µ-Ziq.

Do people ever address you using your assumed name? Is that weird?

Sometimes, yeah. My mum calls me Gary Moscheles.

I often think of artist aliases as being akin to superheroes’ names. Do your aliases give you any special powers?

I would like to think so ;)

Miles Whittaker aka MLZ, Mille

On your own, you’ve recorded mainly as MLZ. What made you chose that, rather than your own name, and what happened to DJ Miles?

Well, the MLZ name is almost an acronym of my first name, and was used to distinguish the production from the Pendle Coven releases, and before the solo project was started it was a lazy decision to use the generic DJ Miles name. Since the MLZ releases I’ve just tied the DJ and live acts together as MLZ.

I’m particularly interested in your Millie project. I presume that you and Andy (aka Andrea) set out to use those pseudonyms anonymously. Why did you decide to create new “characters”—and why did you wish to keep them a secret?

It wasn’t a conscious decision to keep them secret. They are pretty obvious really, we could have chosen any name, but opted for ones not too far away from our real names.

Again it was mainly to distinguish the different sound from both the MLZ and Andy Stott monikers, which are mainly 4/4 techno, so we decided to use pseudonyms. They became girls’ names, this was down to a few reasons, mainly fun, and the different music style, and a little homage and continuity with the label name, Daphne. (Also we’re both huge cross-dressers!).

MLZ, ‘New Analogue Century (Pacou Remix)’

As far as I know, Millie and Andrea were unmasked on Discogs. Do you know who revealed you? Was it frustrating, or had you been expecting it?

No, we don’t know, don’t care, and it’s nice to be of interest that someone wants to unmask us! I also think it’s good that the music can stand on its own, rather than the personality behind the music being of interest. We release music, and that’s where the main interest should be, so I’m a fan of releasing music anonymously more for the fact that the music stands on its own and isn’t weighted by the producer’s following, or the pre-conceptions people might have about the producer’s past work.

When you sit down to write music, do you generally know which of your aliases you’re making music for, or do you wait to hear how the material turns out before deciding which project it fits best? Have you ever created a new alias because you wanted to start making a new style of music?

Speaking personally, no, as some of the material on some of the pseudonyms is quite old, and came before the names were even thought of. I just find it useful to have a few different monikers with different genres of music attached to them, it helps keep the character of the pseudonym, but also allows much more creative freedom for me than just retaining one name in one genre.

Has there been any downside to using multiple pseudonyms?

Not really. Some of the music I release under one name is so far away from the other names that a completely different market is buying the music, and it would be unwise to release under one name. I kind of like the surprise when people find out they’ve been buying your records and they didn’t know it was you.

Again, for me, it’s all about putting records out, and the music doing the talking. A lot harks back to the Basic Channel days, they had it down to a “T”, though obviously they’ve created a tornado of interest, due to the quality and restraint of their output. I stand by their anonymity stance, as it should be about the music, not the artist, or what they eat, wear, look like etc.

I often think of artist aliases as being akin to superheroes’ names. Do your pseudonyms give you any special powers?

Anonymity of sorts is a good power, this gives you a little more creative freedom, and is almost a form of invisibility.

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