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Mark Caro, better known as Technical Itch, is a British
electronic music artist, disc jockey, and founder of Technical
Itch Recordings and Penetration Records. As a
musician he works mainly within the jungle
and drum
and bass genres. He is esteemed to be a progressive producer of jungle,
combining moody, unsettling, and dense atmospheres with complex drum
patterns and penetrating basslines.
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Contents
- 1 History
- 2 Releases
- 3 References
- 4 External
links
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History
During 1991 Mark Caro was based in Birmingham,
DJing at local UK hardcore parties. He soon started out
on the production trail, with a very limited set up, producing hardcore
techno. As his musical production skills and talent developed he
released tracks as Ent.
T through the Ibiza
label. Introduced by a mutual friend, Mark soon formed a partnership
with Darren Beale, also
known as Decoder. As a duo they were moving away from the conventions
of hardcore, following breakbeat into the less static realms of
jungle. The pair's earliest tracks came toward the peak end of the UK
hardcore scene; both Beale and Caro were noted DJs, with Beale's
recorded work as Orca
adding to his notoriety. They released, as Plasmic Life, a self-titled EP, which
appeared on Bizzy B's Brain Records.
Still only a part-time collaboration, further releases ensued,
but their desire to run their own record label could not be quelled,
and so Tech Itch Recordings was
spawned. The label had limited success, which deepened after Omni Trio's Rob Haigh
heard Kenny Ken playing a
selection of Technical Itch
tracks on Kiss FM, leading to their signing
with Haigh's home-base Moving Shadow in 1996. Mark then
relocated to Bristol
from Birmingham
where his production skills perfectly complemented Darren's
musicianship as a guitarist. The pair produced a number of singles as Technical Itch for the label
that same year, with scores of tracks as Decoder and TIC continuing to appear on their own and other
labels, marking the pair one of the more prolific (and increasingly
influential) of the new crop of jungle producers. Though a Decoder
full-length was first out of the gate in late 1998, Tech Itch's
Diagnostics followed in 1999 on Moving Shadow.
With a prohibitively long list of aliases (Darren is better
known as Decoder
and is member of Kosheen) and strong links to Moving
Shadow, Tech Itch Recordings has been playing a major part in the
worldwide jungle and drum and bass scene. Technical Itch is
now widely known as being only Mark Caro, and his original tracks are
widely renowned for their unique style, high level of production and
programming, examples of which can be heard in recent releases such as
The Rukus, Whrilwind, and Heavy Metal. With over 32 releases on the
Tech Itch label and a new sister set-up entitled Penetration,
Mark and Darren's presence within the drum
and bass scene is ever-stronger. In 2004 Technical
Itch merged his Tech Itch Recordings with Dylan's Freak
Recordings to create Tech Freak Recordings. The
natural progression has led to long-term projects with MC Jakes, Dieselboy, Kemal, and a long list of others who
compliment their unique style of music.
In 2006,
Caro began releasing dubstep recordings under the name Tech Itch.
Releases
The first release on Moving Shadow was Can't You See
(Shadow 74) followed in the same year by The Dreamer (Shadow 99),
remixed by Future Forces (Shadow 99R). Both tracks were co-produced and
engineered by Decoder.
With a number of releases on Shadow under his belt, Mark started to use
the Technical Itch
name for his more individual projects. First up was The Virus (Shadow
101), remixed by Danny Breaks (AC101) and
Stronghold (Shadow 116), with the storming Dom
& Roland (AC116) remix. Moving Shadow released material from
Technical Itch's debut album Diagnostics.
Mark has also completed production work with Decoder on Peshay's albums and for various high profile
remixes on major labels. As for their DJ sets, Mark and Darren go out
singularly and as a duo, playing either back to back or straight sets.
The experience makes for a unique fusion of sound, with newest tracks
from Moving
Shadow and Technical Itch Recordings
often being showcased during the night.
It is hard to point out the most well known single by
Technical Itch, as over the years he tends to release one floor crusher
after another. The most recent cuts that have been played by numerous
DJ's all over the world are "Reborn [Weapon Remix], Nitron, The Rukus,
Soldiers, and several of his own tracks from "Killabites Vol 2". He
also gained popular exposure when he contributed a track to the
soundtrack of the Wachowski Brothers' Animatrix.
The track, The Real, featured sampled dialogue from
the films The
Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded.
Many of Mark's releases feature sound bites from
science-fiction or fantasy sources. In particular, 'The Ring' has voice
clips from the Lord of the Rings movies, 'The Stone' features a line
from an episode of Farscape, 'Replicator' borrows a line from Stargate
SG1, and 'Wraith' uses dialogue from Stargate
Atlantis.
References
External links
