Fretless AZM

One of the more organic (sounding) producers in the field of electronic music, multi-instrumentalist Max Brennan works from his base on the Isle of Wight, a relatively isolated outpost in the middle of the English Channel. The solitude must undoubtedly accelerate his recording schedule, since during 1996-97 Brennan released a total of seven LPs under his three main aliases: the quasi solo acts Fretless AZM, Universal Being and Maxwell House (many of whose releases also feature the work of Brennan compatriots Paul Butler and Rupert Brown). The blueprint of all three projects are much akin, a locked-groove variation on deep jazz-funk, minus its earthy qualities and more indebted to the cosmic reckonings of Sly and George Clinton electro-funk with slapped bass and rhythm schemes borrowed from worldbeat. A painter/decorator and veteran of several live funk bands before he emerged as a producer in 1995 with the Fretless AZM project, Brennan recorded several EPs plus the debut Fretless AZM album From Marz with Love during 1996. He had already debuted the spacier, more downtempo Universal Being project with two LPs recorded that same year for Holistic (Holistic Rhythms and Jupiter). Before the end of the year, Brennan had released another album by another project, the self-titled debut for Maxwell House on Peacefrog Records. The year 1997 brought two more Fretless AZM LPs, Astral Cinema and Distant Earth, as well as the second Maxwell House album. In 1998, he unveiled a new pseudonym for Holistic -- his own. Max Brennan's Alien to Whom? was released in June 1998, just two months after the fourth Fretless AZM full-length in total, Oceans of Light. Brennan also released EPs for Beau Monde as O.H. Krilll and for Phono as Cide. Millennium Butterflies, again credited to Fretless...