SND

Mark Fell and Mat Steel, two Sheffield-based DJs and producers, diverged modestly from the city’s dominant strain of British techno associated with Warp Records in order to align themselves with the experimental and minimalist tendencies of European artists such as Oval, Microstoria, and Gas on the Mille Plateaux roster. They titled the project after the common computer-sound-file suffix, and both members, skilled programmers, avoid conventional electronic tools and instruments in favor of contact microphones and custom software interfaces for capturing sound. Their first releases, the single “Tplay” and the Newtables EP, appeared on their own SND imprint between 1998 and 1999. Frankfurt’s Mille Plateaux then issued the duo’s debut album, Makesnd Cassette, in July 1999, with the follow-up Stdiosnd Types arriving the next year. Fell maintains a separate collaboration with Jeremy Potter under the name Shirt Trax.