Biography

Assemblage 23 is a one-man electronic act, whose sole member is musician Tom Shear, based in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Prior to starting Assemblage 23, Shear experimented with music under the name “Man on a Stage”, beginning in the early 1980s. Most of Shear’s music at this point was instrumental, as he lacked the confidence to sing; the quality of the music itself was highly questionable by his own admission. Shear eventually began to add vocals to his music; at the same time, Shear was also playing bass in a punk band called the “Advocates”.

Assemblage 23 got its start in 1988, when at a Depeche Mode concert, founder Tom Shear heard the opening DJ spinning industrial dance music. Prior to hearing this type of music, Shear had been creating primarily synthpop and post-punk type music.

Hearing industrial music for the first time proved to be something of an epiphany for Shear, as he had finally found a form of music that combined the electronic sounds he loved from his synth-pop background with the heavier, darker aggression punk represented. Even so, the project was more of a hobby for Shear at this point; it took until 1998 for Assemblage 23 to gather enough positive acclaim to attract the attention of record labels.

Shear signed a deal in 1999 with the Canadian label Gashed! for a full-length album, “Contempt” (released in November 1999). A second album, “Failure”, followed in March 2001 and was released by Gashed! in North America and Accession Records in Europe. A single from “Failure”, “Disappoint”, was released on Accession in October 2001. The song dealt with Shear’s sense of loss after his father’s suicide on October 28, 1999.

After falling out with Gashed Records following “Failure”, Shear signed with US label Metropolis Records later in 2001; Metropolis re-released “Contempt” and “Failure” that November. A remix release, “Addendum”, was also released in November only on Accession. By this point, “Assemblage 23” had become fairly popular within the ebm genre.

The third album, “Defiance”, was released in October 2002 on Metropolis and Accession, preceded by the single “Document”, in September of that year.

“Assemblage 23” released a fourth album, “Storm”, in October 2004 with singles “Let the Wind Erase Me” in August and “Ground” in November.

In March 2007, “Assemblage 23” released a new single, “Binary”, which debuted at #21 on the Billboard US singles chart, preceding the album “Meta”, which was released in April 2007. Later this year, the release of “Early, Rare & Unreleased (1988-1998)” which is a collection of 14 “Assemblage 23” tracks taken from the years 1988 - 1998.

Assemblage 23’s latest venture is in the form of Compass. A regular and a deluxe limited 2CD editions were released October 20th, 2009 being Spark the single taken from the album.

Shear also has a side-project, “Nerve.Filter”, which has been running alongside Assemblage 23 since 1995. But no more albuns will be released. The project is open for remixes only.

Official website: www.assemblage23.com