History

tekBuddha is a name given to me by an old friend. I don’t think he intended it to stick the way that it did but I believe the name is an excellent conjunction of large pieces of me. As such, when I began producing and spinning electronic music that sounded very “techy” and was “chill”, tekBuddha was apropos.

As I began to listen to it more it became clear to me that electronica was just like any other music. Mixing the tracks together was like bridging songs together: find the beat, find the key, find the appropriate time to layer the different sounds together, fade in, fade out, repeat. I did this writing pieces of a song. The only difference is the physical activity to make it happen. I was using someone else’s music to make my own sound.

I produced my own tracks, remixing others, and put out a couple of really solid mix CDs under the tekBuddha name.

Demos

Track: Sleepless Sunrise
Musicians: John Martin
Year: 1998
Notes: Written in one night, this track was my first “real” home production on a grown-up sequencer. I learned how to use Steinberg Cubase writing this.

Track: Trip
Musicians: John Martin
Year: 1998
Notes: While this is really just a loop, this was my first track mixing my own material with a tweaked sample. I learned to use Properllerhead’s ReCycle with this track. It’s a straightforward loop, but building this helped unlock many doors to making other sounds.

Track: Untitled
Musicians: John Martin
Year: 2000
Notes: I wrote this shortly after watching the movie Gladiator for the first time and the theme struck a chord with the imagery I’d just seen.

Track: Apogiffa Night (tekBuddha’s Desert Attack Mix)
Musicians: John Martin
Year: 2005
Notes: A remix of an Infected Mushroom track. I wrote this to specifically to play at a desert gig. This was the opening track of my set. I led into it with a sample of Agent Smith from The Matrix going on about the human species being a virus. The sample threw listeners into a bit of confusion for a moment and then the track smacked them upside the head.

Track: Scorpion Frog (tekBuddha’s Ass Bouncin Mix)
Musicians: John Martin
Year: 2005
Notes: A remix of an Infected Mushroom track. I wrote this to specifically to play at a desert gig. It was the closing track of my set. I played this intro under a sample of Brother Justin from Carnivale preaching how “the time has come, brothers and sisters”. From one of my last great sets as a DJ.


Mix CDs

Track: Lunar
Musicians: John Martin
Year: 2001
Notes: Lunar was a project that was conceived over six months. Ambient downtempo-ness supports the story of Apollo 11 and the first landing on the moon. This was carefully constructed to make a trip to the moon years in the making a short 40-minute journey. It really is something special. Listen with headphones and candles. My personal highlight of this phase in my musical endeavors.

Set List
01. Tetsu Inoue / Magnetic Field
02. Rick Strom / Haute
03. Plusar Blue / ATHE
04. Edward Shearmur / Grand Central
05. Tristan / Umbra
06. Western Rebel Alliance / Fly
07. Chroma Key / You Go Now

Track: High Fidelity
Musicians: John Martin
Year: 2002
Notes: I put this out about five months after Lunar. It actually just sprung out one day while watching the John Cusack movie. I heard the line that is the opening sample here and immediately got up to slice this together. Fidelity is a great road trip mix.

Set List
01. Intro
02. Schulze, Namlook, Laswell / Psychedelic Brunch VIII
03. Single Cell Orchestra / Knockout Drops
04. Ceiling Fan / Ceiling Fan
05. Shpongle / Once Upon the Sea of Blissful
06. Massive Attack / Heat Miser
07. Binah / Crescent Suns
08. Celtic Cross / Hicksville (tekBuddha Creeper mix)
09. LSG / Westside
10. Schulze, Namlook, Laswell / Psychedelic Brunch III