Optical (musician)

Matthew Quinn, known by his stage name Optical, is a British musician, producer and DJ. He is best known as one half of drum and bass duo Ed Rush and Optical (with his long-time musical partner Ed Rush), whose debut album Wormhole has been described as one of the most significant LPs of the drum and bass genre.^[1] He is also the brother of another successful dance musician Jamie Quinn aka Matrix.

Early years

Quinn started making music as teenager, and had his first releases under his short-lived hardcore jungle alias Teknarchi^[2] in 1993, and later a limited success as techno producer (under various monikers such as Fly By Wire and Morpheus^[3][4]). His breakthrough successes as Optical has been "To Shape The Future" 12" published 1997 on Metalheadz^[5] and the track "Grey Odyssey" featured on Grooverider's successful mix album "The Prototype Years". Along with his drum and bass musician and DJ career he started collaborating as programmer and sound engineer with Rob Playford and his label Moving Shadow (for which he was credited on Goldie's "Saturnz Return"^[6]) and Grooverider on whose album "Mysteries on Funk" he was credited as co-producer.

Ed Rush & Optical

In 1995 he has first met his main future musical collaborator, another upcoming drum and bass artist Ed Rush^[7] with whom he will form the musical partnership that they are both most renown for. Shortly after, Rob Playford gave the duo small space in his Soho office building to use as their own studio, and in this studio the duo recorded and released first of several 12" singles both as Ed Rush & Optical and in collaborations with other artists. Having recorded a dozen or so joint recordings in that studio, the duo considered that a lot of their material produced at the time was unfit for labels like Metalheadz, Prototype and other labels they were associated with at the time^[8] but that they would still like to publish it, as the music has been played by the two in clubs with great reception. so they decided to start their own imprint Virus Records in 1998. One of their first releases on the imprint was their renowned long-play "Wormhole", released the same year, the album that is generally considered one of the defining points in the evolution of drum and bass genre. The album is recognized as the recording that has introduced the sub-genre of drum and bass known today as neurofunk and Optical, as the more technical musician in the duo, is considered by the wider music production community to be one of the genre's original sonic architects.^[9]

Although the Virus imprint was initially intended for self-publishing their own material (a practice that is common in indie and dance music), Virus' subsequent releases featured many notable drum and bass artists like Fierce, Matrix, Cause 4 Concern,^[10] Noisia^[11] and others.

The duo released numerous singles and five more full-length albums, winning them numerous accolades such as Knowledge DnB awards best album and best producers^[12] and being described as one of the most influential artists in drum and bass by Ministry of Sound ^[13]

Discography

References

External links

• Optical on AllMusic
• Optical on SoundCloud
• Optical on Discogs
• Virus Recordings on Bandcamp
• Virus Recordings on Discogs