biography Beginning with the post-punk trio Thela and moving through White Winged Moth and into his solo recordings, New Zelander Dean Roberts has marked himself out to be a guitarist of unique talents. Roberts has played with some of the biggest names in the electric/acoustic improv scene and approaches his instrument in much the same way as the likes of AMM's Keith Rowe, and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. Like them he pushes the limits of experimentation whilst refusing to let his mastery of the guitar descend into meaningless technical work-outs.
Deploying seemingly random devices, Roberts began his musical journey coaxing the meditative and spell-binding drones and sustained sound from prepared guitar for Thela and White Winged Moth. Reinventing himself as a solo artist, Roberts embraced sound manipulation and electronics, his drone-based work increasingly being displaced by a sonic haze of glitches, crackles, pops and waves of electronic sound. Releasing his music through Staalplaat and Mille Plateaux, Roberts steered close to electronica territory before turning his hand to songwriting and arrangements for his album And The Black Moths Play the Grand Cinema, released in 2000 on Ritornell. Described by Wire as "less of an attempt to blend genres - post-rock, prepared-guitar improv, glitchadelica - than a demonstration of how; for the truly imaginative, genres remain utterly meaningless", And the Black Moths... now seems like a bridge between Robert's early solo recordings and new album Be Mine Tonight.
An album of slow wrenching songs, featuring key players from the Italian improv scene and combining Roberts processing and editing skills with his guitar innovations, Be Mine Tonight sounds like both the conclusion of an experiment and the beginning of an exciting new one.
Dean Roberts is currently based in Vienna, Austria and working with Werner Dafeldecker (Polwechsel) and Martin Brandlmayer (Radian) on a new album.