Tom Vek

London's Tom Vek functions as a solo artist who fuses electronic textures with indie rock and punk energy while drawing from new wave and garage sources, and he created the bulk of his initial work inside his parents' garage. As a teenager in the mid-'90s, he drew inspiration from grunge and started producing rock modeled on Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam; prior to that period he supported his guitarist father by playing bass and drums inside their rehearsal area. At age 14, after his family obtained a reel-to-reel tape recorder, Vek began capturing his own music, which shifted from grungy rock toward Warp- and Ninja Tune-style electronica as the decade ended. He had been sharing his recordings with a family acquaintance, Alex Cooper, longtime drummer for Katrina & the Waves, who forwarded the latest electronica-leaning material to his cousin Tim "Love" Lee, head of the eclectic electronic imprint Tummy Touch. Lee offered Vek a deal, resulting in the 2001 7" "There's Only One Thing Left Now" as his first official release. Tummy Touch green-lit a full album, which Vek developed alongside his graphic design coursework at St. Martins. By then his sound had changed once more, moving away from delicate electronica toward a harder, more rock-oriented approach. Tracks such as "If You Want" signaled this shift, as did live appearances backed by a full band that included support slots for Bloc Party and Engineers. His first album, We Have Sound, appeared in the U.K. during spring 2005 on Tummy Touch before Island/Universal acquired sublicensing rights; Startime International issued it in the U.S. that autumn. Following extensive touring, Vek proceeded deliberately with new material. He secured a space in East London, founded PALLET Recording Studios, spent three years equipping the room with custom gear and learning fresh production methods, then devoted another two years to songwriting and recording. He returned in early 2011 with the single "A Chore," the initial preview of his second album, Leisure Seizure, which arrived digitally in June and in physical format that September. After losing the PALLET facility to new housing development, Vek adopted a fully independent stance for 2014's Luck, handling every aspect of its creation alone.