Producer/musician Steve Libbey, aka Robotic Storm Cloud, hasn't always been funky, electronic and strange. A punk rock guitarist by nature, he resisted computer based music for years until 1995, when he used his Mac to create the bombastic second half of Martian Electric's "And I Called Myself The Sun/The Observable Universe" and for the lounge sounds in "Prince Ten." The four track became a memory, and shortly after the breakup of Martian Electric in 1997, he began recording in earnest with the computer. Having been a "noise guitarist," Libbey was especially interested in the possibilities of manipulating sound with deliberation and care, rather than in-the-moment. Sound editing software let him step back from a sound, tweak it with various treatments over time, until it took on a new identity. He had little interest in copping samples from other songs and mixing them, as most were doing. He was excited by the idea of creating unique instrumental sounds for that particular musical moment. His first album, Ambush On All Sides -- reformatted here with a different track list -- featured some of the early Mac work, with nothing but found sounds and a sample editor. Soon Libbey built a PC to take advantage of sequencing software, and began to explore rhythm and tone possibilities. Ambush met with glowing critical praise ("The end result is too good, too unexpectedly original to ever be called a sound collage....It's hard to find any fault with this album, even considering the wildly overwrought "sample" culture that spawned it." -- Southeast Performer) and local acclaim. When Libbey decided to step into the live performance arena (having whetted his appetite with supporting roles for The Thin Man and Diana Obscura), he had to wrestle with the issue of how to present this electronic, sample based and nonconventional music. The solution was to "resample" the sampled songs by assembling a live band, adding a sampler to the mix to handle those sounds that could not be recreated physically. The Robotic Orkestra included Diana Obscura (electric cello), Todd Olson (sampler), Tanner Dorheim (drums, electronic percussion) and Angel X (keys, bass, guitar). The band played the CD release party for Free Life and Fresh Air (also reformatted). Libbey tried to record the show, declaring to the world via press that it would be released as a concert CD. Unfortunately, the tape machine was faulty, resulting in nothing but tape hiss. After recording two albums with the Shut-Ups in Atlanta, Libbey now writes novels in Portland, Oregon, and plays guitar in a funk band, The Golden Greats.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License by Steve Libbey. Email.