ASC

Known primarily by the alias ASC, James Clements has earned recognition as a remarkably productive creator of atmospheric electronic music that stretches from drum'n'bass into ambient territories, all unified by recurring motifs of space and science fiction. During the 2000s his experimental drum'n'bass productions stood out through elaborate beat programming and an airy, weightless quality that distanced them from the more dancefloor-focused currents of the style. After issuing The Astral Traveller in 2009—the last release on his own Covert Operations imprint—ASC charted a different course with the 2010 album Nothing Is Certain. Alongside recordings by dBridge and Instra:mental, that widely praised work helped define the autonomic strain, an eclectic blend incorporating drum'n'bass, IDM, techno, dubstep, and additional elements. Although ASC kept probing this fusion on later projects such as 2012’s Out of Sync, much of his output across the decade took the form of deep-space ambient albums like 2016’s No Stars Without Darkness and abstract techno collections such as 2018’s Astral Projection.

Born in England, James Clements grew up in various regions of the country. Early inspirations ranging from Motown and techno to the U.K. hardcore and rave scenes led him to DJ on pirate radio during high school and to begin crafting drum'n'bass tracks in 1997. From 2000 onward he placed material on imprints including Nu-Directions, LTJ Bukem’s Looking Good Records, and his own Covert Operations. His first full-length, Environments, appeared via Nu-Directions in 2003, with Open Spaces following on Testflight Recordings in 2004. Around that period Clements moved to San Diego to join his future wife, Christine Clements, known as dubstep producer Vaccine. While continuing to release drum'n'bass under the ASC name, he also explored dubstep and ambient techno as Intex Systems and dub techno as Mindspan. In 2009 Thermal Recordings issued the ASC album Heights of Perception in digital format, and The Astral Traveller closed out the Covert Operations catalog.

In 2009 London-based producers dBridge and Instra:mental launched the Autonomic podcast and club night, supplying a label for the hybrid 170 BPM approach they and ASC had been developing. Issued on Nonplus—the label operated by Instra:mental’s Alexander Green, also known as Boddika—the 2010 album Nothing Is Certain marked ASC’s continued shift beyond drum'n'bass. In 2011 he helped establish the Autonomic-oriented club night 170SD, while the single “Starkwood” came out on the brief-lived Autonomic label. That same year Silent Season, a Canadian imprint, released ASC’s debut ambient album, The Light That Burns Twice as Bright. Additional ambient works followed on Silent Season, while rhythm-oriented material surfaced on Clements’ Auxiliary label and on Samurai Red Seal, including 2012’s Out of Sync and 2015’s Imagine the Future. By 2018 ASC’s beat-driven work had moved considerably closer to techno, evident in singles on Konstrukt and Semantica as well as the full-length Astral Projection on Horo.