Charles Uzzell-Edwards

by Sean Cooper
Recording almost exclusively for the Frankfurt-based Fax label, Welsh expatriate Charles Uzzell-Edwards makes environmental ambient heavy with found sound and field recordings, both solo and in combination with artists such as Pete Namlook, Tetsu Inoue, Atom Heart, and the Mammal. A DJ of renown before moving into production, Edwards moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1991 after studying commercial design in London. Working as a designer for skate/ravewear clothier Anarchic Adjustment, Edwards was a chill room staple when he met Faxs Pete Namlook in 1993, joining the noted ambient label Fax first as its US distribution arm (which he remains). He moved into music production in 1994 in collaboration with Namlook on two sets of releases, A New Consciousness 1 and 2 and Create 1 and 2, before moving into solo composition with Octopus the following year. Although growing increasingly toward more structured compositional improvisations, Edwards remains concerned primarily with the integration of music with the environment not only in which its heard, but also in which its created (through extensive use of contact mics and DAT recordings gathered on location), which aligns his work with early European free improv groups such as AMM and contemporary compositional figures such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage. Subsequent solo and collaborative works have also incorporated a larger degree of digital sampling, as well as elements of jazz and post-rave experimental electronica.