artist Original Recipe

Dean Williams and Steve Mason met in the late 1990’s during Steve’s first visit to Toronto, Ontario.  Sharing a mutual affinity for abstract sound, humour, the recreational destruction of brain cells, and measured doses of drones, bursts of static, beauty, and sloppy breakbeats, their collaboration began almost immediately; their first co-written track was conceived, written and recorded during their first evening together.

With Steve soon back in Indiana, geographic distance effectively laid the blueprint for their compositional technique; their initial collaborations carried out over the infuriatingly slow dial-up networks available at the time.

Sampling, more by necessity than design, soon became a central weapon in their musical arsenals, allowing them to bring traditional instrumentation into their work, as well as playing a large part in the creation of unique textures, utilizing the most unmanageable found sounds, and adding a warmth, quirkiness and startlingly human quality to a genre that at times celebrates the abandonment of all things organic. 

Half performance art and half performance, Original Recipe’s live sets often involve live composition and improvisation, pretty ladies, costume changes and staggering dance moves in an attempt to break free of the much-maligned techno tradition of screengazing. A performance at  Vancouver’s New Music West festival, for example, involved the on-stage preparation and serving of omelettes; which by all accounts were delicious.