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BT Information
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'Brian Transeau' (born 'Brian Wayne Transeau' on October 4, 1971 in Rockville, Maryland) is a musician who records under the stage name 'BT'. Classically trained from the age of thirteen, he attended Berklee School of Music in Boston for one year before dropping out and moving to Los Angeles, California, and then back to Washington, D.C..
Transeau's music was not very well received in the United States, and he moved temporarily to Europe where his music was discovered by Sasha, a British DJ who introduced BT's music into the club circuit. Instantly popular, BT's 1996 album Ima helped shape the future of the burgeoning progressive house scene as it merged with, and later came to define, the trance music style. However, unlike so many artists of the trance genre, BT has lost neither his momentum nor his edge. While Ima was comprised solely of the "progressive" sound, 1997's ESCM was more experimental (although it still produced several big records for the electronic dance music scene). BT's 1999 album Movement in Still Life continued his experimentation outside of the trance genre he helped to define through an interesting dichotomy emerged between his more adventurous work and the more structured, commercially viable tracks. This album also featured a strong element of nu skool breaks, a genre he helped define with the classic Hip-Hop Phenomenon, in collaboration with Tsunami One. 2003 saw the release of Emotional Technology featuring more vocal tracks than usual, including six with vocals by Transeau. He also provided vocals on the DJ Tié«sto single "Love Comes Again", and recently worked together with David Bowie on the song "(She Can) Do That", recorded for the movie Stealth (2005), which BT also composed the score for.
In recent years he has also moved into film scoring including Go (1999), Under Suspicion (2000), Driven (2001), The Fast and the Furious (2001), and Monster (2003). He recently completed the score for Stealth (2005), as well as the score for The Underclassman (2005).
Also of note, unlike many artists working in electronica, Transeau frequently performs his music live on-stage. In 2004, he did a very popular "last night of summer" concert at BT Tower (named for British Telecom, not Transeau).
On December 14, 2002, Transeau invited twenty plus fans to his home for a private party to preview his (as of then, unreleased) upcoming album, Emotional Technology (2003).
Aliases include Kaistar, Libra (as Libra Presents Taylor), with John Selway as Dharma, with Deep Dish and John Selway as Prana, with Shaun Keng Collins as Elastic Reality, with Taylor as Elastic Chakra, with Guy Oldhams and Taylor as GTB, and with Sasha as 2 Phat Cunts.
The song Somnambulist (Simply Being Loved) was featured on the North American version of the dance video game Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME.
Brian Transeau is the father of a young daughter. He lives and composes his works in his Los Angeles home/studio.
Musical Progression
The variety of BT's music is considered one its most notable qualities. In the early portion of his career (roughly 1995-2000), he was generally refered to as a Trance music artist; or the more ambiguous term of DJ, prompting the motto . However, BT has been consistently experimental in his music, making it impossible to classify him, as an artist, in any one genre.
BT's first full-length album, Ima (1996), features simple, bright melodies harmonized with a variety of rhythm riffs and electronic accents. Released as a two disc set, only three of the songs have lyrics (Loving you more [BT's final spiritual journey] vocals: Vincent Covello, Blue Skies vocals: Tori Amos, The Delphinian Days mix) and is considered, as an album, to be of the Progressive Trance genre.
In 1997, BT released ESCM, which featured more complex melodies and more traditional harmonies along with a heavier use of vocals. The tone of the album is darker and less whimsical than Ima, the individual tracks being much tighter and cohesive. The album, as a whole, is much more diverse than BT's freshman album. While Lullaby for Gaia and Remember (both featuring Jan Johnston) are code trance music, other tracks find their way into the canon's of other electronic sub-genres that were emerging in the mid-ninties. Love, Peace, and Grease is breakbeats, Firewater and Orbitus Terranium are considered house, Flaming June (probably the most famous single of the album) and Nectar are examples of hard trance. The most experimental track on the album is Solar Plexus which is easily divided into two parts. The first part is dark and suspenseful with a raging crescendo chorus, and features gritty vocals that proclaim "I burn!" in the chorus. This half of the song has been featured in numerous film trailers, including Blade 2 and Hellboy. The second half of the song is slow and introspective, with a single piano and slowly building electronic accents. The vocals in the second half are clear and quiet to the point of obscurity. The mystery of what the lyrics to Solar Plexus actually are has been a sort of in-joke among BT fans since the album's release.
BT's third album, Movement in Still Life, moved into less experimental music and was somewhat worrying to some fans. The strong hip-hop influence on Madskillz-Mic Chekka and Love on Haight Street was the cause of this worry as hip-hop and trance are essentially complete opposites in style. Smartbomb provided the missing link between BT's previous work and this new rap-inflused work, as it bore a strong resemblance to Solar Plexus Part 1 and included a lyric sample from Love on Haight Street. The album hits a spectrum of genre-work. Shame, Satellite, and Running Down the Way Up lean towards the alt-rock, while Godspeed and Dreaming fall into classic trance ranks. Never Gonna Come Back Down was the most popular single from the album, and appeared on the Gone in 60 Seconds soundtrack in radio edited form. Mercury and Solace, while failing to achieve the commercial success of Never Gonna Come Back Down, is regarded by many BT fans to be his best single song.
Emotional Technology succeeded in being BT's most experimental album, to the great relief of fans. While the album opens with the hip-hop infused Knowledge of Self, the rest of the album features hooking riffs with an almost excessive amount of electronic accent. Superfabulous (featuring vocals by Rose McGowan) is the least of the songs in that respect, and yet it breaks in the middle of the song for a brief spoken word conversation about Rose flipping off someone at the Geddy museum. The big single from the album, Somnambulist, draws heavily from the breakbeats and new wave dance of New Order and Depeche Mode, whom BT has sited as major influences. The rest of the album fairly escapes genre labeling, from the dark guitar work of Circles, to The Only Constant is Change which is reminiscent of Satellite, the album blends genres, changes genres in mid-track, and never fears the atonal.
It is difficult to talk about BT's film scores in the context of his music's progress because each draws heavy influence from the film itself. What can be said is that after The Fast and the Furious, BT recieved several offers to score for similar movies and turned them down, opting to work on a variety of film styles.
Discography
Singles
* "Moment of Truth" (1993)
* "Relativity" (1993)
* "Embracing the Sunshine"
* "Loving You More" featuring Vincent Covello (1995)
* "Blue Skies" featuring Tori Amos (1996)
* "Divinity" (1996)
* "Quark" (1997)
* "Flaming June" (1997)
* "Love, Peace & Grease" (1997)
* "Remember" (1997)
* "Shineaway" (1997)
* "Believer" (1999)
* "Godspeed" (1998)
* "Mercury and Solace" (1999)
* "Fibonacci Sequence" (2000)
* "Never Gonna Come Back Down" featuring M. Doughty (2000)
* "Dreaming" (2000)
* "Shame" (2001)
* "Somnambulist (Simply Being Loved)" (2003) #98 US
Albums
* Ima (1996)
* ESCM (1997)
* Movement in Still Life (1999)
* Emotional Technology (2003)
* Monster - Music From and Inspired by the Film (2004)
* Stealth - Original Motion Picture Score (2005)
EPs
* The Technology EP (2004)
Compilations
* R&R (Rare & Remixed) (2001) - A collection of BT's remix work.
* Still Life In Motion (2001)
* 10 Years In the Life (2002) - "Best of" album.
Remixes
* B-Tribe, "Nanita (A Spanish Lullaby)" (1995)
* Shiva, "Freedom" (1995)
* Diana Ross, "Take Me Higher" (1995)
* Cabana, "Bailando Con Lobos" (1995)
* Grace, "Not Over Yet" (1995)
* Wild Colour, "Dreams" (1995)
* Mike Oldfield, "Let There Be Light" (1995)
* Billie Ray Martin, "Running Around Town" (1995)
* Seal, "I'm Alive" (1995)
* Gipsy Kings, "La Rumba De Nicolas" (1996)
* Billie Ray Martin, "Space Oasis" (1996)
* Tori Amos, "Talula" (1996)
* Tori Amos, "Putting the Damage On" (1997 - Unreleased)
* Dina Carrol, "Run To You" (1997)
* The Crystal Method, "Keep Hope Alive" (1997)
* Paul Van Dyk, "Forbidden Fruit" (1997)
* Deep Dish, "Stranded" (1997)
* Madonna, "Drowned World/Substitute For Love" (1998)
* Lenny Kravitz, "If You Can't Say No" (1998)
* DJ Rap, "Bad Girl" (1998)
* Depeche Mode, "It's No Good" (1998 - Unreleased)
* Sarah McLachlan, "I Love You" (1999)
* Tom Jones, "She's A Lady" (2000)
* Sarah McLachlan, "Hold On" (2001)
* KoRn, "Here to Stay" (2002)
* The Doors, "Break on Through (To the Other Side)" (2004) w/ additional production by Burufunk and Carmen Rizzo
Film appearances & scores
* The Jackal (1997) - "Shineaway" (with Richard Butler)
* Go (1999) - Complete score, "Believer"
* Under Suspicion (2000) - Complete score
* Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) - "Down"
* Driven (2001) - Score, "Satellite"
* "Double Take" (2001) - "Movement In Still Life"
* Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) - "The Revolution"
* The Fast and the Furious (2001) - Complete score, "Nocturnal Transmission"
* American Pie 2 (2001) - "Anomaly-Calling Your Name" (Libra Presents Taylor)
* Zoolander (2001) - (removed his name, uncredited), "Madskillz-Mic Chekka (Remix)"
* Sweet November (2001) - "Shame (Ben Grosse Remix)"
* Blade 2 (2002) - "Tao Of The Machine" (with The Roots)
* The Core (2003) - "Sunblind"
* Monster (2003) - Complete score
* Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004) - "Superfabulous (Scott Humphrey Radio Mix)"
* The Underclassman (2005) - Complete score
* Stealth (2005) - Complete score, "She Can (Do That)" (with David Bowie)
Video game appearances & scores
* Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas (1999) - Complete score
* Frequency (2001) - "Smartbomb"
* SSX Tricky (2001) - "Smartbomb (Plump's Vocal Mix)"
* Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (2001) - "Madskillz-Mic Chekka"
* Wipeout Fusion (2002) - "Smartbomb (Plump DJs Remix)"
* ATV Offroad Fury 2 (2002) - "The Revolution"
* Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions (2002) - Complete score
* Need for Speed: Underground (2003) - "Kimosabe" (with Wildchild)
* Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005) - "Tao of the Machine (Scott Humprhey's Remix)
" (with The Roots)
* Amplitude (2003) - "Kimosabe" (with Wildchild)
* Dance Dance Revolution Extreme (2004) - "Simply Being Loved (Somnambulist)"
* Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 (2004) - Complete score
* Extreme Gravity Racing Accociation (XGRA) - "Dreaming", "Godspeed", and many more.
Sample CDs
* Breakz from the Nu Skool (2002)
* Twisted Textures (2002)
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