The Flashbulb

The Flashbulb serves as the chief moniker for Benn Jordan, a highly productive electronic musician and composer widely recognized within the United States IDM community. Jordan demonstrates skill across multiple instruments such as guitars, synthesizers, drums, and sitar. His output spans IDM, breakcore, acid techno, jazz fusion, and modern classical, while he has also scored various film and television soundtracks along with commercials, several earning awards. Jordan maintains a reputation for his positions on file sharing and digital music distribution, in addition to running his independent imprint Alphabasic.

Growing up in Chicago, Jordan acquired guitar skills independently and started creating electronic music during the 1990s, drawing from the local acid house movement plus British electronic figures including Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. His initial full-length under the Flashbulb name, the expansive 24-track M³ (Daily Assortment of Sound), achieved grassroots attention via internet forums and file-sharing platforms. In 2001 Jordan attracted online notice by disclosing his authorship of “Finnlebuk,” a piece initially presented as an unreleased excerpt from Aphex Twin’s forthcoming Drukqs. Around the same period his heavily processed remix of LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” began circulating widely. He earned acclaim for technically demanding live sets and appeared alongside performers from outside electronic music circles.

These Open Fields, the second Flashbulb album, adopted a more personal tone and reduced abstraction compared with the debut, incorporating Jordan’s vocals together with piano and acoustic guitar. First issued in 2001 on Alphabasic, it later appeared through Bohnerwachs Tontraeger, a subsidiary of the German breakcore label Suburban Trash Industries. In 2002 Aphex Twin’s Rephlex imprint put out the Flashbulb’s remix of Bogdan Raczynski’s “Fuck You DJ” as a limited 7-inch single. The Japanese label Accelmuzhik followed in 2003 with Girls Suck But You Don't, an interim collection of assorted tracks pulled from Jordan’s archives. Also in 2003, the enhanced CD Resent and the April Sunshine Shed arrived on Alphabasic, displaying greater emphasis on live and acoustic elements.

Red Extensions of Me, released in 2004, marked Jordan’s most widely praised album to date—an expansive project of frenetic breakbeat electronics and the first Flashbulb record to include an external contributor, violinist Greg Hirte. Issued in Germany by Bohnerwachs Tontraeger, it simultaneously inaugurated Canadian label Sublight Records, which maintained an active four-year catalog. Kirlian Selections, Jordan’s first entirely studio-recorded album, came next in 2005. That year also brought Réunion, a clear stylistic shift toward downtempo funk and jazz fusion. Flexing Habitual, a comparatively concise and abrasive set, appeared in 2006.

Soundtrack to a Vacant Life had been slated for Sublight but, following the label’s 2007 closure, Jordan released it himself on Alphabasic, the imprint that would handle all future projects. Upon discovering unauthorized sales by online retailers, he personally seeded the album across file-sharing networks while inviting listeners to support the music directly if they wished. The record continued his movement toward introspective pieces with live instrumentation. Arboreal (2010) and Love as a Dark Hallway (2011) extended explorations of jazz, IDM, ambient, and post-rock. In 2012 he issued the ambitious and reflective Opus at the End of Everything plus the shorter Hardscrabble.

May 2014 saw two simultaneous Flashbulb albums: Nothing Is Real, a set of cinematic IDM, and Solar One, a continuous hour-long ambient work. The solo piano album Compositions for Piano and the atmospheric, rhythm-focused EP aBliss followed in 2015. The expansive, cross-genre Piety of Ashes appeared in 2017. The concise Dormant (Movement 1 Through 7) emerged in 2018, and the full-length Our Simulacra arrived in 2020. ~ Paul Simpson