Michael Victory

It started on a front porch in Merville, Vancouver Island, BC Canada. I was six, with a shortwave radio, turning the dial. The stations mattered less than the wild other-worldly spaces between them.

By my teens I was collecting Experimental, Noise and Industrial records. I started a project called Sect and signed to Spiral Records in Vancouver while I was still in high school. Bruce Young and Jason McEvoy joined around the time Electronic music entered into its Renaissance. Sect’s sound bolted Techno onto its Industrial frame. Third Mind put out Telekinetic in 1994. Subduction picked us up after that, and I explored two paths in parallel: Ambient Techno, and Tech House. I saved the Tech House for further development and let a few of the armchair Techno tracks out on various compilations. Many more rough mixes have recently been pulled from DATs thanks to friend and fellow Tech House enjoyer/producer and DJ, Flørist (Pavilion Records).

Then I stopped for a few years to navigate some tricky waters.

In 2001 I shed the aliases and released under my own name: Michael Victory. I self released Deep Architecture, then in 2002 CSM put out the Winds of Change vinyl single.

2017 changed how I work. I made a long Ambient album for one reason: the format let me actually finish it, and I needed an on-ramp. That was informative; pick a subgenre I love that requires less and get on with it.

Now it is Lo-fi and Dub House. The aesthetic fits me and the no fuss, no ceremony aspect of the style feels a little DIY. In an industry largely obsessed with polish, leaving the flaws feels delightfully subversive. I am not chasing flawless sound design. I am catching a moment, pushing the hardware hot for energy and connecting back to some of the roots that came before with 1970s Dub and Noise music.