BugBrand is the umbrella for works by Tom Bugs. I have a small setup working out of Bristol, England. This website presents my various electronic audio devices along with performances / events and some other bits & pieces.
[Website launched 15th Jan - certain sections are still to be filled - this may be a gradual process! If you have any comments or notice any faults in this new website then please let me know via the Contact page]
A Brief Introduction
Coming from a musical background in playing / recording, over the last few years I have been pretty much subsumed by working with analogue electronic circuitry. My work comes from a self-taught perspective of creative engineering - reveling in the meeting of art and science, where the inner workings of analogue circuits open up to present new sonic worlds.
Today I offer a constantly shifting range of electronic sound producers / processors and, from Jan 09, launch into the powerful world of Modular Synth systems. Pretty much everything you see here is designed from scratch and then built by hand - the work is full-time and constant (and fun!), though I do now have a part-time helper for some soldering and, through 2008, have begun using professionally fabricated PCBs (still hand soldered and assembled) to allow improved design possibilities.
BugBrand Workshop Apr2007
Electronic Background
I actually have virtually no official training in electronics! My route has instead been through trying things out and reading in books and on the internet - a self-directed DIY approach.
It was the ideas of circuit bending, the creative short-circuiting of devices to make malfunctionary new sounds, that got me started investigating the sounds hidden within circuits. From there I began building my own circuits to better understand the workings and things have just grown from there as I have discovered new techniques, both in circuitry and in the creative use of materials.
Musical Background
Between 2001 and 2006 my main creative focus was in performance and recording, both solo as Knowledge of Bugs and in several bands around Bristol including Francois and the Atlas Mountains, War Against Sleep and Bronnt Industries Kapital. My last Knowledge of Bugs album, The Shifted Sands, was released in late 2005. Since then it has been a gradual slide from music into electronics.
I spent several years helping out at the wonderful Cube Cinema, primarily doing live sound for bands, but also recording acts such as Safetyword, Herman Dune, Jandek and Evan Parker.
