Mike Wallis and Sam Ashwell have been hanging out together since a chance meeting two decades ago at a mutual friends house in Wimbledon. Both went on to study sound engineering, one at City of Westminster and one at Kingston Uni. They began DJ’ing together playing student nights in Kingston and have gone on to DJ across the globe from Prague to LA passing by Miami and Barcelona amongst many other places along the way.
Mike and Sam started producing instrumental hip hop together under the pseudonym ‘Abstrakt Knights’ back in 1999 on Wrong Tom’s Halflife Records before releasing on Erratica Records, Uncharted Audio, 10 Year Noose and Colony Productions over the next few years.
The pair began writing under the name ‘Psi Spy and Diagoro’ as their sound changed in to a more dance floor orientated electro sound and releases on Andrea Parker’s ‘Touchin Bass Records’, ADJ & Pathic’s ‘Pyramid Transmissions’ and Sync 24’s ‘Cultivated Electronics’ imprints followed.
During this time their own label ‘Colony Productions’ which was born in 2001 began expanding it’s roster to include artists such as Crunch (Mike Wallis & Dave Tipper), Cane aka Funckarma, Opiuo, Vent (Sam Ashwell & Dan Havers), Bran Richards, Schema, Mouldy Soul, Tryptich, Krossbow, Earegular, RD as well as many others.
The latest incarnation from these two comes in the form of ‘Basik’ and has come together after a few years of not working in the studio together and instead concentrating on their label and other projects. Sam now finds himself the creative director of 750mph and an award winning Sound Designer and Mike has been concentrating on producing of another kind and now has a 6 year old daughter and is one half of Dj and production duo ‘Krymes’ alongside Ben Parker aka Lone Drum.
The first track to be unleashed under the new ‘Basik’ moniker ‘End of Days’ is of a bass heavy and glitchy, mid-tempo style and is representative of the glitch hop sound that is fast becoming an alternative for the dubstep and drum and bass heads around the globe and can be found exclusively on Beta Test Records.
www.betatestrecords.com