Biography
Highly cinematic ambient world spacerock fusion.
Systems Theory is a multi-national internet music project creating adventurous music best described using the terms cinematic-progressive, cinematic-ethnic, cinematic-spacerock, cinematic-electronic, cinematic-ambient, cinematic-soundscape, cinematic-fusion. The compositions run the gamut from dark ambient drift to worldprog-fusion to full-throttle aggressive spacerock, many of which are colored by the rich organic sounds of the Mellotron M400, Hammond T500 and other old analog keyboards.
All tunes are written by the core trio of Greg Amov, Steven Davies-Morris and Mike Dickson. The project currently has two albums available, the 2004 release "Soundtracks For Imaginary Movies" and the 2007 release "Codetalkers". Guests appearing on the albums include Diane Amov (flute), Cyndee Lee Rule (violin), Michael Futreal (dulcimer), Brian Daly (electric guitar), Dun Strummin (electric guitar), Paul Beecham (bass guitar), Antonia Naylor-Ostler (child vocal and laughter) and Cosworth the cat (odd electric piano popping noises that came over the echoplex). Two early evaluation (demos) albums from 2000 and 2002 are floating around on the internet. These will be cleaned up and released properly sometime in 2008/2009 with the addition of some unreleased tracks.
Why did we name ourselves "Systems Theory"? We're all computer programmers by trade, and it seemed to reflect that which puts food on the table, clothes the kiddies and pays the mortgage, while stretching beyond the borders of science and technology into other areas and systems-driven disciplines. There's no conceivable way we'd have hooked up and created music as Systems Theory without the magic of the internet (usenet).
Being able to offer MP3s for download allowed us to share our creations with an audience that would otherwise not exist. We had to do it initially based on the largesse of friends and an FTP site offering free progressive rock MP3 downloads. We realized early on that we could reach a lot of people using MP3s and usenet newsgroups, but even that approach has grown in ways unforeseen. Now that we have a pair of real albums, Last.FM offers us an even more up to date delivery system, and the opportunity to reach a huge potential audience that can listen to an entire album rather than just a few selected tunes.
We see independent artists masterminding the selling and/or giving away of their material as the next logical evolution of the music industry. Survival of the fittest, etc. None of us in Systems Theory will shed any tears over the eventual demise of the huge music conglomerates, as more and more "name" artists decide to take matters into their own hands, offering some or perhaps most of an album's tracks as downloadable files. Some free, and some – probably the hottest tracks – as a buyable commodity with no vampyric middlemen. Last.FM serves a huge role in acting as a sophisticated radio tool whereby listeners can rapidly find artists with a sound and style they are interested in. They can they pop over to sites like Amazon or CD Baby (in our case) to conveniently acquire albums that they already know they want to own.
Greg Amov is an American of Russian/Latin descent, living in Los Angeles, California. Steven Davies-Morris is an ex-patriate Brit from London living in Ventura County, California. Mike Dickson is a Scot, living in Edinburgh.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
