Alex Spalding
Alex Spalding lives in Springfield, MO and runs the netlabel Noise-Joy. He started playing music when he was in 6th grade band and was soon discovered to be a prodigal alto-saxophonist. Of his saxophoning, it was once said "He [Alex] plays like gold! Not like cheap, unrefined metals... pure gold!" He quit playing 3 years later, after switching schools and being knocked down to a rusty spit-filled baritone by a teacher who loathed his eccentric demeanor and shabby mode of dress.
He was involved in a small number of unsuccessful bands while in High School, most of which never progressed past the "You know what would be fun? Let's start a band!" phase. In 2002 he began recording music in a room using a cheap drum machine and analogue synthesizer that he was lucky enough to have scored as an unlikely birthday present. In about a year this had grown to include a computer after then receiving FL Studio 4 from a friend (later, girlfriend). At this point he went about installing the program on every friend's computer and ceaselessly programmed music wherever he went, often to the dismay of such said friends. He now has several audio-related programs on his computer, and a few more synths and drum machines as well.
Alex's interest in noise and other strange sounds developed after discovering industrial music in middle-school. He insisted upon listening to artists like Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Monte Cazazza and most of the Wax Trax! catalogue while others around his age were infatuated with the Backstreet Boys, KoRn and Marilyn Manson. He also has an insatiable appetite for the synthpop on which he was weaned and VGM of the Commodore and Nintendo variety. Alex is also an avid reader of a variety of literature, though I'm not sure what the relevence of that is. Staying informed and amused is important!
He's known alienation his whole life for his cleverer-than-thou mannerisms and insistance upon living the good life, even though he is largely still a member (victim?) of the American proletariat class. He has expressed empathy with the plights of anarchism, anti-work philosophy, anti-authoritarianism and the nomadic lifestyle, and fashions himself a modern Renaissance man or free agent, though most would fashion him a deadbeat or dropout. He is also an atheist, a born-again chaote and idiot savant, as well as a percussion-enthusiast.
His work is an extremely mixed bag, spanning several vaguely defined genres: experimental (Aim023, Freaka$$, What Am I Listening To?), noise (Geräuschangreifer, Libertine Soundsystem), dark ambience / modern classical (Imp), techno / various dance-musics (Lamprey, Leveleight, Sewer Mannequin, Sheiße Manelli, Spalding), something sort of resembling early spacerock (Seymore [omega]) and artist parodies (RadSK(00L)LOL!1, Slamdancing J. Edgar Hoover, On the Rim of the Seat a Hair).
