There are those who would like for music to fit into nice little genre-specific boxes, to toe the line and follow certain preconceived notions as to what fits with what. Several innovative artists have pushed the limits of the popular music spectrum, and in the process left some wide genre-gaps in their wake. These gaps are indefinable without numerous hyphens and sub-references. Third Eye Foundation, the moniker chosen by Bristol's maverick noisemaker Matt Elliott, settles nicely into those gaps and makes them into a home for his signature cacophony of noise, bliss, and energy. Elliot, who has spent time playing with Flying Saucer Attack, as well as Movietone, displaces notions of genre in a manner reminiscent of Aphex Twin's more challenging moments, or the rhythmic experimentation of Main.

First startling ears with the Semtex LP and single of the same name, released on his own Linda's Strange Vacation label and Domino Records respectively in '96, and continuing through various singles and remixes, Elliott hit the scene with a blistering, fractious mix of drum'n'bass and distorted feedback loops. Third Eye Foundation first reached U.S. shores with 1997's Ghost LP on Merge, followed up by the EP, The Sound Of Violence. By the end of 1997, Third Eye had taken its place at the very forefront of experimental electronic dread.

Merge proudly released You Guys Kill Me in the fall of 1998, wherein The Third Eye Foundation embarked upon a new journey, with a new open sound, laced with a kinder, gentler hypnotic digital warmth. Recorded early in 1998 at Elliott's upgraded Bristol, England, studio, You Guys Kill Me is stripped of much of the harsh edges and cacophonic noise in favor of a more subtle sound scape evoking the dark nether reaches of the listener's soul. "A Galaxy of Stars" gets us started, setting a Latin Shuffle against a dervish string mantra. Elsewhere previous flirtations with drum'n'bass are given a shakedown with the secret technology of "No Dove No Covenant," while the slower pitched "Lions Writing the Bible" and "An Even Harder Shade Of Dark" have an eerie, charged hallucinogenic quality. In closing the album with "In Bristol With A Pistol," Matt Elliott comes his closest to sounding like his hometown.

www.thirdeyefoundation.com

Semtex [cd] (Linda's Strange Vacation) 1995
"Sleep" on Monsters, Robots and Bug Men comp. [cd] (Virgin (UK)) 1996
"I Have Known Love" on Electronic Evocations: A Tribute to the Silver Apples" comp. [cd] (Enraptured) 1996
In Version [cd] (Linda's Strange Vacation) 1997
Semtex [ep] (Domino (UK)) 1997
Universal Cooler [ep] (Planet) 1997
"Shot in the Head" on Macro-Dub Infection Volume Two comp. [dbl-cd] (Virgin (UK)) 1997
Ghost [cd/lp] (Merge) 1997
Sound of Violence [cd-ep] (Merge) 1997
Fear Of A Wack Planet [cd5] (Merge) 1998
Split 12" w/ V/VM [ep] (Fat Cat) 1998
You Guys Kill Me [cd/lp] (Merge) 1998
In Bristol With A Pistol [cd5] (Merge) 1999
"Semtex" on Oh, Merge comp. [cd] (Merge) 1999
What Is It With You [12"/cd5] (Merge) 2000
Little Lost Soul [cd] (Merge) 2000
I Poopoo On Your Juju [cd] (Merge) 2001