Biography - May 2004
David Bryant was born in 1979 in Boston, Massachusetts to a steam engineer of the same name and a craftswoman named Carole. In time the family moved to New Hampshire, which David came to call his home. It was in his senior school in New Hampshire where Bryant met co-horts, the bomarr monk (Matt Valerio) and teljimjesus (George Chadwick). They were immediately drawn to each other through their tast in music; few kids around them shared the same interests.
By age thirteen Bryant was serving as a vocalist in various punk rock bands, often including Valerio and Chadwick. After various incarnations, the trio would later form restiform bodies. Bryant's musical interests quickly expanded to include hip hop and then electronic music, ultimately leading him to make a number of "ill-informed purchases of cheesebag equiptment". The results of his experimenting with his new equiptment were, however, promising. Before long, passage was one of the first musicians to be inspired by the anticon sound, but the last to be absorbed by its machine.
After slipping sole of anticon a restiform bodies demo tape at Cincinnati's hip hop festival Scribble Jam, the jingle-core, golden-voiced passage soon took the dark humour hard way out of New Hampshire. Arriving in California in 2000 with a demo no one could refuse, he and his fellow restiform bodies quickly proved that they were the missing ingredient from the anticon swell. With a penchant for darkness, sarcasm and self-loathing, passage embodies what's both awkward and endearing about the cynical nice guy.
passage has toured the United States with sole. He's performed with DJ Krush, Kid606, Cex, Stars As Eyes, Gold Chains, Blechdom from Blechdom, Jay Lesser, Books on Tape, Aceyalone, Abstract Rude, Atmosphere, Animal Collective, Grand Buffet, Dahawney Troof, Barry Andrews (of Shriekback) and in his own words "one time disgraced the mic" at a Herbiliser show when he was eighteen, but then admits "actually, they were kinda into it."
passage cites his musical influences as Tubeway Army, Joy Division, Ghetto Boys, Guided By Voices, Wu Tang, De La Soul and Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark. His songwriting and production reflect and reference a sophisticated and diverse musical palette. Part punk rock, part new wave, part hip hop, and part indie hip hop, passage's debut solo album the Forcefield Kids is such an amalgamation of influences that it's incomparable to anything before it.