Kid606

Kid606 stands out among American electronic musicians for a playful streak that also led him to establish the Tigerbeat6 imprint. That irreverence toward “intelligent techno,” evident both in his demeanor and his output, drew from hardcore techno, indie punk, noise rock, and ample heavy metal. Born in Venezuela, Miguel Trost De Pedro relocated to San Diego while still young. There he developed an interest in samplers, began producing tracks, and issued early material through Spacewurm, Ariel, and Disc—the last a collaboration with Lesser and Matmos—all linked to the Southern California label Vinyl Communications. His solo debut arrived in 1998 as the full-length Don’t Sweat the Technics on VC; later that year a split CD with Lesser appeared alongside the EPs Unamerican Activity and Dubplatestyle. In 2000 De Pedro launched Tigerbeat6 with Kid606 and Friends, Vol. 1, a collection of remixes and joint recordings, then issued the full-length GQ on the EQ++, which gathered the 10-inch GQ on the EQ together with additional tracks from limited editions of the period.

Midway through 2000 he delivered Down with the Scene, his first album for Ipecac, the experimental imprint connected to Faith No More’s Mike Patton. Months afterward the experimental techno label Mille Plateaux released the more restrained P.S. I Love You, followed in 2001 by the companion remix set P.S. You Love Me. Kid606 returned to hardcore territory with the 2002 mashup-driven The Action Packed Mentallist Brings You the Fucking Jams on Tigerbeat6’s bootleg-focused Violent Turd imprint and with 2003’s Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You, along with further releases on the ragga/jungle Tigerbeat6 sublabel Shockout.

Resilience (2005) and Pretty Girls Make Raves (2006), both on Tigerbeat6, signaled a return to earlier electronic landscapes: the former evoked IDM and electronic listening music, while the latter functioned as a straightforward techno record. Amid numerous collaborative ventures, remixes, and split releases in the late 2000s, De Pedro relocated to Berlin and issued the 2008 EP Die Soundboy Die. Its full-length follow-up, Shout at the Döner, appeared in 2009. Around that time he began flooding the market with digital EPs, many dancefloor-oriented and remix-heavy, some surfacing on the Tigerbeat6 sublabel Tigerbass. The all-analog, nearly beatless Songs About Fucking Steve Albini surfaced in 2010 on Important Records, home also to releases by Merzbow and Zurich.

Lost in the Game, issued in 2012, favored melody more than any prior work in his catalog. Happiness, released the next year, pursued a comparable melodic path yet adopted a brighter tone, drawing from his move to Los Angeles as well as the smooth stylings of Christopher Cross and Toto alongside Tangerine Dream. De Pedro pursued an even gentler course with the 2015 piano-centered minimalist album Recollected Ambient Works 1.0: Bored of Excitement and the EP Recollected Ambient Works 1.5: Discreet Music, the latter featuring a cover of the Brian Eno composition of the same name. A further installment, the slightly more song-oriented Recollected Ambient Works, Vol. 2: Escape to Los Angeles, closed out the year.