Rob Swire

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For the English physiotherapist, see Rob Swire (physio).

Rob Swire
Rob Swire in 2017
Rob Swire in 2017
Background information
Birth nameRobert Swire-Thompson
Also known asAnscenic
Born (1982-11-05) 5 November 1982 (age 41)
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Singer
  • songwriter
  • record producer
  • disc jockey
Instrument(s)
  • Vocals
  • synthesizer
  • guitar
  • bass
  • keyboards
  • percussion
  • drums
  • piano
Years active1998–present
Labels
Member of

Robert Swire-Thompson (born 5 November 1982)[1] is an Australian record producer, singer, songwriter, and DJ. He is the founder and vocalist of the drum and bass and

Gareth McGrillen
.

Originally from

Ztar Z6S-XPA
. Swire also plays guitar, bass, keyboards, percussion, and other instruments. He is sometimes referred to by the stage name Anscenic.

Early life

Rob Swire was born and raised in

lathe cut copies of the record were distributed, to help promote the label's 2001–2002 tour of New Zealand. Swire also produced a track titled "Electrodes on the Skull" which was released alongside three tracks by other artists signed to the label at that time.[5]

Career

Pendulum

Main article: Pendulum
Pendulum at the Electric Ballroom in London, England, 2007

In 2002, Swire formed

Ztar
– a guitar-like MIDI controller – during live performances.

After the band's first tour they started work on a second album,

Streamline", and "Still Grey" in order to keep a consistent sound. In addition, he continued his former roles of writer and producer, although he delegated the task of vocal mixing to a professional mixing engineer. Swire was also extensively involved in creating publicity material for the new album, as he explained during an interview with Lucy Chakaodza of The Independent.[8]

Pendulum released their third album titled Immersion in the UK on 24 May 2010. This is Pendulum's only number one album, topping the UK Albums Chart.

Pendulum announced on 19 June 2012 that they had split. Swire stated, "We're having too much fun with the Knife Party project. It's also great because Pendulum, towards the end, sort of felt like we were doing it because we had to, and that's never a fun way to do music. Whereas Knife Party is pretty much solely us doing what we want to and if no one likes it we don't care." This can be equated to Rob Swire feeling limited to a genre under the band Pendulum, and he has stated publicly over tweets that he hates the restriction that a fan base can bring, he does enjoy continuing to produce music.[9]

On 22 August 2013, Swire revealed that a new Pendulum album will probably be released sometime in 2014.[10] Despite this, Swire ruled out the possibility of Pendulum performing live again. However, Pendulum reunited at the 2016 Ultra Music Festival in Miami, Florida.

On 9 January 2017, Pendulum confirmed to be reuniting for a world tour and possibly releasing a new album, with Swire also returning. They performed live at several music festivals internationally throughout 2017.[11]

On 29 June 2018, Pendulum's album, aptly titled "The Reworks" was released, composed solely of remixes from artists such as Skrillex, Moby, Pegboard Nerds, Noisia and the Knife Party alias. Remixes from Noisia, Knife Party, Icarus and Skrillex were released as singles beforehand.

On 17 September 2020, Pendulum released two singles "Driver" and "Nothing for Free", making this the first new material in ten years since Immersion. A music video for "Nothing for Free" was produced, and the two songs were included in a live set performed by Pendulum at Spitbank Fort on 2 October 2020. Swire indicated that for foreseeable future, Pendulum would continue to gradually release tracks in small chunks similar to the September 2020 release, rather than wait to release an entire album at once.[12] This concluded in early 2021 as the listed songs plus 2 new tracks released in their EP Elemental.

Knife Party

Swire with Knife Party in 2015
Main article: Knife Party

In 2011, Swire formed the

drumstep. The Knife Party remix of Swedish House Mafia's "Save the World" was Zane Lowe's 'Hottest Record in the World' on 31 May 2011.[13]

In late 2014, Knife Party released the 12 track album, "Abandon Ship". It was released accidentally through iTunes in October, though it was officially supposed to be delayed until November. The album features diverse stylistic influences, from dubstep, to house and notably features some parody work such as "EDM Trend Machine", ostensibly mocking certain tropes of contemporary EDM.

In November 2015, Knife Party released a 4-track EP, Trigger Warning, with three original tracks ("PLUR Police", "Kraken" with Tom Staar, and "Parliament Funk"), alongside a remix of "PLUR Police" by Jauz. The originals have heavy influences from various styles of house, while the Jauz remix is more influenced by dubstep.

Knife Party's Tom Morello collaboration, "Battle Sirens", was released in September 2016, and it is part of Morello's upcoming album, "The Atlas Underground". As a single, it was remixed by Brillz and Ephwurd individually.

Knife Party released their own remix of their Pendulum original "Blood Sugar" on 13 April 2018 to mixed reception.

Their collaboration with Pegboard Nerds, "Harpoon", was released as a single on record label Monstercat as part of Pegboard Nerds' Full Hearts EP on 26 July 2018.

That July, Rob confirmed a new Knife Party EP in 2018 through a Reddit question and answer session.

Their new EP, Lost Souls, was released in July 2019 and featured remixes by both

Muzzy
and Annix.

Other work

Swire performing at Center Stage in Atlanta, 2009

Swire recorded vocals for

Roc Me Out", and contributed bass guitar and backing vocals to the songs.[14] He has also released three other singles in collaboration with other artists: 2006's "Nervous (Creep)", as a mixer for DJ Fresh and Mary Byker; 2009's "End Credits (Live)" as a mixer for Chase & Status and Plan B; and 2010's "Play" as a producer for Taio Cruz. Most recently, he recorded vocals for Eric Prydz's song "Breathe", which featured on Prydz's debut studio album Opus
in 2016.

Swire additionally recorded vocals for Deadmau5's song, "Monophobia", which was released on 13 July 2018. [citation needed]

Music

Production

Swire has worked as a record producer since 1999, most recently for Pendulum while producing the album In Silico, during which he was required to create demos, record the tracks, and mix the album. He is responsible for mixing most of the band's material, although more recently he has avoided mixing vocals, stating that, "Since I was doing the vocals, it's a bit harder to keep the objectivity on the engineer's side".[15] To avoid spending too long worrying about sound quality, Swire drafted the demos for In Silico using Commodore 64 and Nintendo emulators, and basic synthesiser sounds.[16] To record the album, the band travelled to various studios where the live musicians, including Swire himself, recorded acoustic drums, guitars, bass and vocals. In addition to recording the various tracks that constituted each song, Swire recorded samples of the instruments used so that, if he was not happy with one of the tracks, he could then play the part himself using a keyboard sampler.[16] Swire has used Pro Tools for recording audio and Steinberg's Cubase for production, but now mainly uses Steinberg's Nuendo for production and post-production editing. Swire records tracks using both hardware synthesizers and virtual instruments.

Performance

Swire at Ultra Korea in 2017

Swire has performed a wide range of instruments while recording material for

Ztar Z6, in addition to performing vocals on tracks for which his voice was originally used. Swire's favoured MIDI controller keyboards when performing live are the CME UF70 Master Keyboard and the Korg
Kontrol 49 MIDI Keyboard.

Discography

For releases with Pendulum, see Pendulum discography.
For releases with Knife Party, see Knife Party § Discography.

Singles

As lead artist

Title Year Album
"Fat American Bitchcore"
(with Animal Intelligence) 		2002 Non-album single

As featured artist

Title Year Peak chart positions Certifications Album
CAN
[19][20]
CAN
Dig
[19]
 EU
[19]
UK
[21]
UK
Dance
[19]
 US
Dance
[19] 		US
Dig
[19]
US
Heat
[19]
"Ghosts 'n' Stuff"
(Deadmau5 featuring Rob Swire) 		2009 53 56 41 12 2 1 6 24 For Lack of a Better Name
"Breathe"
(Eric Prydz featuring Rob Swire) 		2016 — — — — — — — — Opus
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

Guest appearances

Title Year Peak chart positions Album
CAN
Dig
[19]
 US
Mix
[19] 		US
Dance
[19] 		US
Dig
[19]
"Electrodes on the Skull" 2002 — — — — Efil4Zanildrah Part 2
"Parameter" — — — — Pendulum Recordings 09/02 Mix[25]
"Aphid" — — — —
"Moving Forward" — — — —
"Monophobia"
(Deadmau5 featuring Rob Swire) 		2018 37 3 19 9 Mau5ville: Level 1
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

Production credits

Title Year Performing artist(s) Co-producer(s) Album
"Nervous (Creep)" 2006 DJ Fresh featuring Mary Byker Daniel Stein Escape from Planet Monday
"End Credits" (Live) 2009 Chase & Status featuring Plan B Saul Milton, Will Kennard Non-album single
"Rude Boy" Rihanna
StarGate
, Travis George 		Rated R
"Play" 2011 Taio Cruz Taio Cruz TY.O
"
Roc Me Out
" 		Rihanna StarGate,
Gareth McGrillen
, Kuk Harrell 		Talk That Talk
"
5 Minutes
" 		2013 Tinie Tempah Zane Lowe Demonstration

References

  1. ^ Birth Date Source
  2. ^ Martin, Gavin (16 September 2010). "Pendulum interview: We have a no groupie policy". mirror. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  3. ^ Robert Swire-Thompson Archived 8 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine. Names Database. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  4. ^ Fat American Bitchcore (Lathe, 7", Cle). Discogs. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  5. ^ Efil4Zanildrah Part 2 (12"). Discogs. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  6. ^ About Pendulum Archived 4 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine. Official Pendulum website. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  7. ^ Pendulum biography. LetsSingIt. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  8. ^ Chakaodza, Lucy. The 5-minute Interview: Rob Swire, Musician. The Independent. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  9. ^ "Pendulum announce split - NME". NME. 19 June 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  10. ^ "Rob Swire on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  11. ^ "Pendulum". facebook.com. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  12. ^ "Why Pendulum Are Back After A Decade in the Wilderness". Kerrang!. 28 September 2020. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  13. ^ Hottest Record - Swedish House Mafia - Save The World (Knife Party Remix). BBC.co.uk. Retrieved on 31 May 2011.
  14. ^ deadmau5 feat. Rob Swire - Ghosts N Stuff. YouTube.com Retrieved on 19 August 2018.
  15. ^ a b Inglis, Sam. Rob Swire: Recording In Silico. Sound on Sound. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
  16. ^ a b Moayeri, Lily. Pendulum on In Silico Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Remix Magazine. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  17. ^ Hold Your Colour (CD, Album). Discogs. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  18. ^ In Silico (CD, Album). Discogs. Retrieved on 18 September 2008.
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Peak chart positions for Deadmau5 on Billboard charts:
  20. ^ αCharts.us - Performer: Deadmau5
  21. ^ Peak chart positions for Deadmau5 in the UK:
  22. ^ "Canadian digital download certifications – Deadmau5 – Ghosts 'n' Stuff". Music Canada.
  23. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 4 June 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  24. ^ "deadmau5' 'Ghosts N Stuff' Has Been Certified Platinum". Billboard. Retrieved 7 November 2016.
  25. ^ Paul Harding (22 September 2002). Pendulum Recordings 09/02 Mix Archived 6 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Drumclub news 13 November 2002 Archived 28 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine. teknoscape.com. Retrieved on 10 March 2011.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rob Swire.
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