by RAF KATIGBAK

“I started tracking in ’96. What I like about it is that it’s such a ghetto way of making music. Every 11-year-old kid who has a computer in their bedroom can make tracker music. You don’t really need expensive gear or real musical knowledge.” So says 22-year-old computer science major Stephen Sinclair, who for the last couple of years has been producing and performing his live booty-shakin’ electro project Radarsat-1 at several loft parties and bars throughout Montreal. He’s talking about music made on tracker software, an “ancient music creation program” from the early days of computing (for all you computer-oriented types: it’s DOS-based).

“I got into tracking because of BBSes (bulletin board systems) way back in the day, before the Internet became popular. It’s kinda cool because tracking software is how video-game music used to be made, so it works well for electro.”

It works especially well for Sinclair who has already recorded two impressive DIY CDs of his own music. Raised on a steady diet of straight-ahead techno, and originally producing hardcore and acid techno, it was during a fateful trip to Europe two years ago that Sinclair’s love affair with electro began. “When I was visiting Amsterdam, I thought, ‘Hey! I’m in Europe, I should buy some records!’ It’s funny because that was really my only reason. I wasn’t even a DJ at the time. Maybe it was because I was in Amsterdam and I was really stoned, but I was in this store listening to this minimal tech-house record and then on the other side, there was an electro track that sounded like really funky video-game music and I was like, ‘Oh shit! This is what I want to play!’”

This year, Sinclair hopes to release some vinyl of his Radarsat-1 project (which incidentally gets its name from the Canadian satellite that Sinclair’s ex-employer worked on) on a local Montreal label and to continue busting out sick funky live electro beats. Watch out! :

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