Biography

Alex Mein Smith is a native New Zealander currently resident in London.
He’s played with leading figures in the NZ experimental underground (Birchville Cat Motel, Peter Wright, Antony Milton), and has performed often - at many London venues (The Tate Modern, The Spitz, Jacks, The Flea Pit, State51, Area 10, The Hoxton Bar, The Foundry…), at SXSW in Austin Texas USA, and in New Zealand.

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The album - Necessity’s Flame - deals mainly with high contrast. Opposing elements are combined – heavy beats with lethargic textures, positive energy with pensive moods. This suggests dualities such as right/wrong, violence/peace, repression/release, physicality/mentality, reality/fantasy.... and points at something between, beyond. The sum is greater than the parts.

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“Necessity’s Flame weaves rather hefty electronic beats around contrastingly sheeny electric guitar phrases, often in a fashion that recalls the more recent work of Apparat, albeit without the pop elements, or for that matter the load-bearing basslines that hold together Sascha Ring’s productions. In forgoing any major bass presence, Smith lends a kind of weightless quality to his productions, the bright, near ambient qualities of the guitar set firmly against the harsh, volcanic rigours of those distorted beats.” - Boomkat.com

“His music is always built around driving rhythms, fast, fat, mechanical, but more rock than techno. Below, just above the surface, he puts a carpet of electronics, creepy, haunting and sometimes uplifting. Quite a nice move I think....” - Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

"There’s something about these tracks that brings back distant memories. It’s not the ambient qualities necessarily, although that’s part of it, but it’s certainly something about the sounds selected, and the quality of the sound …. It gives me a lot of emotional feelings about something a long time ago, but I can’t figure out what it is." - Shane Cooper

"Wednesday Addams with a Moog." - Murdoch Stephens