Electric Company

Brad Laner's tireless sonic explorations across post-punk terrain—spanning avant-garde rock, thrash, alternative pop, and electronica—yield the Electric Company catalog. Although the project operates under an electronica banner, the results form a studio hybrid laced with guitar-rawk, drum'n'bass, and noise. A longtime admirer of experimental and improvisational figures from Beefheart to Throbbing Gristle to the Residents, Laner assembled his debut group, Debt of Nature, at age 14. The band cut several tracks for New Alliance in 1982 and supported Sonic Youth and the Swans in 1986 before Laner launched Steaming Coils, which issued three albums. He also performed with seminal Los Angeles trance-rockers Savage Republic prior to founding Medicine in 1991.

Medicine became the first American band signed to Britain's super-indie Creation Records and received praise from alternative critics for its extreme interpretation of My Bloody Valentine's noise-pop revolution. The group's debut, Shot Forth Self Living, appeared on Creation scant months after formation and reached the States via Def American. Two further albums surfaced before Medicine disbanded in 1995, the same year Laner released his Electric Company solo debut, A Pert Cyclic Omen. While his other major post-Medicine project, Amnesia, issued albums in 1997 and 1998, Laner delivered two additional Electric Company sets: Studio City for Island and Omakase for Vinyl Communications. He has also collaborated with members of sympathetic groups Mercury Rev and the Vas Deferens Organization and recorded with the neo-prog band Lusk.