artist bio:

spur

upcoming house producer spur has a varied past and an exciting future. he began recording in the early 80’s by “ping-ponging” cassette tapes to pseudo-multitrack original tunes. in the late 80’s he was sequencing on keyboards like the peavey dpm-3 and writing string and horn arrangements with music notation programs like finale. in the early 90’s nathan carlton (spur) attended the minnesota arts high school to specialize in electronic music. by the end of the 90’s he had obtained a music degree from bard college in new york, studying with electronic music pioneers such as richard teitelbaum. in addition to music, nathan could have switched majors to dance, and indeed went on to have a semi-pro dance career for several years after school.

during the rise of mp3.com in the early 2000’s nathan encountered a young producer named alex smith who had gained popularity by writing short songs on his computer and posting them to the website for profit. this inspired nathan to begin making dance music for the first time. soon he was infected with the groove and began collecting deep house records and learning to spin them together on a pair of tech 12’s. also at this time nathan began recording his own voice for various projects and recording other singers for dance tracks, as well as studying other live dj’s and researching the history of the music, which had been conspicuously absent from all his previous electronic music education.

from all of this nathan has developed at least two different lives as a music-maker. one of them, as a producer, is closer to his dj style, which was developed by spinning records for jevne (on live bass) and chuck love (on every other instrument you can name) with additional live percussion at respected clubs such as minneapolis’ the lounge. this music ultimately nurtured the ‘spur’ alias, focusing on the deeper side of the groove in a house vein influenced by producers from da sunlounge to martin venetjoki to joey youngman.

“funklamentary” (featuring sax player shawn mcclain) was the first release in this style on onethirty recordings and includes a big jevne remix that placed prominently on the balance pool’s weekly chart and is supported by top jocks such as d:fuse, deko-ze and chloe harris (dj chloé).

on the flip side nathan’s vocal tracks have grown to huge popularity and are supported by top progressive and trance dj’s such as paul van dyk and paul oakenfold (as endc) and armin van buuren and above and beyond (as the 49th line with alucard, presenting good friend jennifer grimm). pvd called “drift away” (produced by stewart keenan and dale anderson) the tune-of-the-season and the track topped the balance pool’s chart at number one, helping change the direction of record label sog.

a versatile musician and collaborator, nathan’s always full of surprises. expect the unexpected. but always expect good music tastefully done with the best in the business.