About

Why am I doing this, and why would you choose to work with me?

I’m a nerd. A properly obsessed nerd. Everything I’ve done for the last 20+ years is music, and in particular, music that I think helps create a vibrant, inclusive, supportive community that might, hopefully, in some way, make the world a better place. I live and breathe it. I don’t know anything else, even if I might sound like a deranged hippy.

All my experience… all the lessons I’ve learned from the incredible artists I’ve worked with… all the hours of playing, practicing, performing, touring, recording, producing, mastering… all the depth of knowledge of hundreds of different genres… knowing what it’s like to be an artist myself and the passion that YOU put into YOUR music… All that is what I put into my mastering, mixing and production services. I’m also an honest sort – I’m relatively new to the world of charging for my mastering and production skills, but I’m not going to put my name to something I don’t believe in. That’s why you can be safe in the knowledge that your music is in good hands, ready to be delivered to the ears of your fans.

It is my obsession with sound and noise that led me to mastering work. I’m a control freak, right the way through every minutest detail to the finished product. As a musician, I have used hardware synths for over a decade. Learning how to master with hardware and be responsible for the finishing touches therefore made perfect sense to me. It turns out that all the years of weird noises and improvisation, where listening to others is vital, has trained my ear in a way that can bring out all the qualities in other people’s music. I studied Critical Listening In Studio Production with Queen’s University Belfast and I’ve also been extremely lucky to learn the art of cutting vinyl dubplates – knowledge that is essential if your music is going to sound good on a slab of precious wax!

I volunteer my time teaching music production with young people who are unable to access mainstream education at MAP Charity, also the home of the incredible Cosmic Slop Sound System.

I might make weird music, but I’ll make yours sound niiiice!

Biography / CV

For a decade, I worked in various roles as a Tour Manager, Driver and Sound Engineer with the likes of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, Lightning Bolt (Load Records), Battles (Warp Records), Erase Errata (Troubleman, Kill Rockstars, Blast First), Daniel Johnston with Jad Fair (Half Japanese), Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub), James McNew (Yo La Tengo), Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse), Scout Niblett (Secretly Canadian, Too Pure, Drag City), The Mae Shi (Moshi Moshi, Easel), No Age (Sub Pop), Mika Miko (PPM), Hella (5 Rue Christine, Ipecac), KIT (Narnack, Upset The Rhythm), Hoover (Dischord), Chrome Hoof (Southern) and many, many others.

I can sometimes be found doing live sound at Wharf Chambers Workers Co-Operative in Leeds engineering weirdo noise gigs, queer club nights, etc.

For years I was the in-house sound engineer at the much missed Temple Of Boom, a now closed DIY space running three venue spaces with a bar, cafe, and rehearsal rooms. From festivals and clubnights to gigs, I’ve done sound for the likes of Negative Approach, Discharge, Doom, Full Of Hell, Extreme Noise Terror, Toxic Reasons, The Weirdos and hundreds of others.

I was involved in promoting over 300 shows and eight 3 day festivals in Leeds, as well as running a vinyl and cassette record label for many years.

I was a volunteer at and director of Oblong charity, where I helped to arrange and deliver informal, practical, creative workshops for people with mental health needs.

I’m was also a co-founder of SECT, a club night raising money for charity, and had a monthly show on 199radio based at New River Studios in London (full archive here). For the last few years I’ve had a long running monthly show on Threads Radio.

As a musician, I have performed (usually improvising) with the likes of Sun Ra’s Arkestra, Damo Suzuki (Can), Chris Corsano, Mick Beck and Chrome Hoof. I used to play in the bands CHOPS (Upset The Rhythm!) and RUNNERS (Dummy). I have performed in venues all over the world, at festivals such as Nyege Nyege Festival, Field Day, ZXZW/Incubate, Simple Things, in clubs such as Corsica Studios and Soup Kitchen, and in prestigious art galleries such as the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA London), the K11 in Shanghai, ShanghArt at Gilman Barracks in Singapore, Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia in Spain.

Since 2014, I’ve performed and released as part of a duo, CHRONONAUTZ (The Quietus Phonographic Corporation, One Eyed Jacks, Emetic, HVRF, Raven Sigh, Control Club). I have also released music as a solo artist under the name D. Glare on the labels Opal Tapes and Zona Watusa. I’ve also been working as a musician and producer with Rick Holland (Brian Eno, Warp, Jon Hopkins) as Pattern Man, as well as beginning a new collaboration with Keeley Forsyth (Guardians Of The Galaxy, Happy Valley).

BJ Rubin has an archive zip on his blog Pukekos of an old tour CDR released by my old band CHOPS – you can get it here: http://music.pukekos.org/Chops.zip

Selected Press Samples

“However it was compiled, the results sound like something of a revelation. Although only the odd remnants of dancefloor functionality remain, the way D. Glare utilises live club music methods enables the pieces to flow like a DJ mix and pick up a few healthy scars along the way. The unwieldy buzz of oscillators and passages of outright chaos all just makes the moments when everything tessellates all the more glorious” – Tristan Bath, The Wire Magazine (Issue 398)

“Tony Conrad’s approach developed from Fluxus, the neo-Dadaist art movement that preferred playful concepts to painterly expressionism. Conrad’s ‘minimalist’ aesthetic, as well as his sentiment about authorial death, resonate strongly in D Glare’s latest release for Opal Tapes. While 68 Samples best resembles James Ferraro’s scintillating digital atmospheres, by contrast, 4 Oscillators acts like a vacuum. The beats, bass and synthesisers all conspire to create a claustrophobic density through a series of evolving minimalist sequences. Sonically, D Glare has little in common with Tony Conrad – other than sharing a love for rules and perpetuity – but if Conrad is the minimalist equivalent of dipping your toes in a river, then D Glare’s 4 Oscillators is a collapsing jetty at high tide. Immersion is a word too-readily thrown about in music criticism, especially in discussions around psychedelia. It is certainly applicable in this instance, but what is important to note is that D Glare’s immersion is not at all ‘womb-like’, warm or friendly. Rather, it suggests the oneiric underworld of sleep paralysis: dreams where the body is immobile, intruders stand by your bedside and breathing is nigh on impossible. In other words, 4 Oscillators is ripe with elemental, insatiable drama.” – Ilia Rogatchevski, The Quietus (http://thequietus.com/articles/21992-d-glare-4-oscillators-130-samples-at-130-bpm)

“D. Glare brings a familiar AND (physically/mentally) stunning 120 minutes of pure action to Opal Tapes, so get banging. This head ain’t gonna nod itself. Become the delirious alter ego you’ve always hoped to become. Transcend into a necessary madness.” – TinyMixTapes (http://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/watch-d-glare-4-oscillators-130-samples-130-bpm)

“The title may seem prescriptive but it’s as arbitrary as any when you get into it, as the Yorkshire-based mutant explores practically every integer of incendiary noise, atonal wow and flutter and off-centre drum placement within the titular set-up and meter. In that sense it’s much closer to say, the OG noise churn of Merzbow than almost anything by his peers from the noise/techno scene, treating the ‘floor as a space where bones should be melted and tendons tied in a sort of cyberpunk Shibari. It’s long, intense, but with a persistently morning quality that keeps our attention with a repellent yet compelling sort of hypnosis. It’s definitely D. Clare/Glare’s best work to date. We recommend making up a yoga routine to this album and seeing how far you get. Then post a video of it on YouTube for everyone else to give it a try.” – Boomkat (https://boomkat.com/products/4-oscillators-130-samples-at-130-bpm)

“a musical slap, an album-loving freedom and improvisation, permeable immersion, where the drawn samples everywhere, are transformed into disobedient architectures, amount from the walls to the infinite including the end structures and technical skill seems to be lost in the immensely large. D. Glare carries us away with its 4 tracks, in a whirlwind of movement sequences, spirals virtuosos drowning in the depths of the unknown, where extremes meet to twist under the merger of the forces that animate, modernist fable of a daily crushed and mutated into human animal flesh and torments, tension and perdition. Fantasy.” – Silence And Sound (https://silenceandsound.me/2017/03/16/d-glare/)

“A Mercury prize nomination has, alas, proved unforthcoming for Chrononautz’s Public Domain Fuckover Series” – Alexis Petridis, The Guardian

‘Predestination’ by Chrononautz selected by Todd Burns (Resident Advisor, Red Bull Music Academy) in top his 10 tracks of 2012 for Village Voice

“A pretty damn powerful first statement… never ceases to be intriguing” – Tristan Bath Spools Out on D. Glare

“Headflossing” – Boomkat on 68 Samples At 68 BPM For Phased Heads D. Glare

“It’s fucked! KLF/LFO/RSPCA!” – Regis on NOMENTS LP by Chrononautz

“Sick record” – DJ Semtek (Don’t Be Afraid) on Made In Time EP by Chrononautz

“Purveyors of a kaleidoscopic sound grounded in raw techno and acid, Chrononautz (Dom Clare and Leon Carey) are veterans of Leeds punk/hardcore/art world. They channel their obtuse techno primitivism through a prism of telepathic improvisation: one that embraces chaos and astute sound design in equal measure. Although the past few years have seen a number of excellent live techno workouts (not least Karenn and Blacknecks), Chrononautz are set apart by their head twisting psychedelic chops. It is an approach that favours near constant motion – and, crucially, musical progression – over brute repetition” – Chrononautz interview on The Quietus (http://thequietus.com/articles/16622-chrononautz-interview-public-domain-fuckover-series)

“Fusing improvisational chaos, serious technical chops and an insatiable urge to create very strange sounds, Chrononautz are making some of the most exciting and original techno in 2015, though their unrestrained music goes far beyond mere functionalism. Grinding acidic gear and psycotropic madness; esoteric beastings and passages of serene calm; clam fisted grin smithery and off kilter wreckage” – Harry Sword on Chrononautz

“One of the finest mixtures of spirit and process I’ve heard in recent times. Economy and the freedom of experimentation are two qualities that both Rick Holland and Chrononautz harness independent of each other, so this combination is powerful” – William Doyle aka East India Youth on Pattern Man

“Vital for modern art and music” – Stanley Donwood (artist, Radiohead) on Pattern Man

Chrononautz mix for the highly regarded Electronic Explorations series, July 2015
https://soundcloud.com/rob_booth/electronic-explorations-383-chrononautz

D. Glare mix for Kaltblut Magazine, Berlin
http://www.kaltblut-magazine.com/exclusive-mixtape-d-glare

D. Glare mix for Marcel’s Music Journal, January 2017
http://marcelsmusicjournal.com/post/155514963913/dj-mix-d-glare-seventy-at-one-thirty-in-ninety