VoLt

Michael Shipway (re) & Steve Smith (li)

Biografie

A VoLt History

A long, long, time ago Michael Shipway and Steve Smith met for the first
time and decided to write songs together and record them. So a pop/rock band
called Hi-Fi featuring Michael on guitar and Steve on bass guitar was born.
Along with all of this came a desire to explore the world of sampling and
synthesized sound which introduced samplers and synthesisers to the band and
also spawned the classic sampling duo A.I. or Artificial Intelligence that
still exists to this day.

Michael then sent a demo of some songs he had done in the electronic music
genre to the UK record label owned by John Dyson called ‘Surreal to Real’.
Lo and behold they liked it and three albums were produced during the 1990’s
for that label.

It was during a period after this, when Michael was striving to write his
fourth album and Steve Smith was away doing other band projects that it
occurred to Michael that they had never actually tried to play music live
and spontaneous with no prior arranging. Everything had always been
carefully prepared and recorded in computers and edited to achieve the
required result.

So both Michael and Steve agreed it would be a good idea to try some
sessions playing live in the studio with no pre-planned ideas except for
some programmed sequences. So what was to become "The Far Canal" was
recorded in three sessions and VoLt came into being. This lead to 5 album
releases with the Groove Unlimited label, each containing long tracks and
establishing a style for VoLt in what has been described as “Berlin School
for the 21st Century”.

Outside of VoLt, both Michael and Steve have continued to work on solo
projects and both released albums in 2011. Groove Unlimited have released
the album “Phoenix Arising” by Steve Smith and the Tylas Cyndrome, a three
piece Synthesiser, drums and guitar band creating rhythmic and melodic EM in
more of a prog style than VoLt. At the same time, Michael has self released
the ‘Voyage To Venus’ album, a musical interpretation of the first Dan Dare
sci-fi story in a style similar to his first three solo albums.

At the moment, Michael and Steve are working together on the 6th VoLt album,
tentatively titled ‘Circuits’ as well as looking forward to playing at the
Electronic Circus 2012 which will be their first time playing live in
Germany.

Discografie:

The Far Canal (2003)

Star Compass (2004)

Through the Rings (2005)

Nucleosynthesis (2007)

HjVi (2008)

Volt - Circuits Circuits (2012)

Solo-Projects:

Michael Shipway

Into Battle (1990/1994)

Beneath Folly-The Fiendish Chronicles Vol. 2 (1992)

Spirit of Adventure (1995)

Voyage to Venus (2011)

Steve Smith

Spirit of Adventure (1995, mit Michael Shipway)

Phoenix Rising (2011)

LamP - a new colaboration between Michael Shipway and guitarist Garth Jones. Their first album 'The Three Towers' has been completed and will be available soon. Featuring 3 long tracks of synthesiser music with intertwined guitar, the duo will demonstrate the style at their Awakenings concert in July 2012.

Lamp - Three Towers Lamp- Three Towers (2012)

Soeben erschienen / out now: das fantastische neue Album "Circuits" von VoLt.

VoLt - the elusive 6th album by duo Michael Shipway and Steve Smith is now almost complete and making progress towards a release date in late Spring 2012. Following time spent on individual projects, the new album "Circuits" is in a familiar VoLt style with 3 long instrumental tracks. Out now !!!

Eine erste Kritik dazu von Stephan Schelle im Musikzirkus-Magazin: http://www.musikzirkus-magazin.de

/dateien/Pages/CD_Kritiken/elektronik/volt_circuits.htm

Und parallel dazu auch eine erste Bewertung der neuen Lamp-CD: http://www.musikzirkus-magazin.de/dateien/Pages/CD_Kritiken/elektronik/lamp_the_three_towers.htm

Wir dürfen hochkarätiges im September von beiden Musikern erwarten !!!!!!!