GEZ VARLEY / G-MAN BIOGRAPHY
 
Gez first came to prominence in 1990 as one half (with Mark Bell) of ground breaking Leeds based duo LFO. With a sound that referenced early house, b.boy aesthetic (they met as members of rival breakdance crews), northern bleep & their own distinctive sub-bass. LFO not only had a considerable influence over the developing electronic underground (you'd be hard put to find anyone from the genre who doesn't regard LFO as an influence) but also enjoyed chart sucess, their debut single (LFO) reaching no. 10 in the national charts and earning them the ultimate accolade of being described as "the most annoying record (he'd) ever heard" by Radio 1 DJ Simon Mayo! 

I991 saw the duo touring throughout Europe and putting together tracks for their debut album "Frequencies" which was preceeded by the "We are back" single. Later that year they made their US debut at the New Music Seminar & collaborated with Karl Bartos (Kraftwerk) on some tracks which due to record company wranglings never saw the light of day in their intended form.

By 1992-3 the duo had a considerable number of gigs under their belts, including the first large scale rave in Paris, and were much in demand as remixers, having remixed Africa Bambaata, Art of Noise & YMO and this set a seal on their acceptance into the historical tradition of electronic music. Canadian DJ/Musician Richie Hawtin had been considerably influenced by the duo and they collaborated on a 12" (LFO v FUSE) originally on the Warp "Quick One" imprint later re-released on Hawtin's label Plus 8.

 By '94 the strains of a lot of touring were beginning to show and they began to want to spend more time at home. Recorded output from the duo (disregarding the collaborations) during this period had consisted only of 1 single (What is House) in 1992. The pair's response was to start to work on their own material, Mark Bell's "Speed Jack" and "Gez's" G-Man both have ther roots in this period and once the 2nd LFO album "Advance", was released we saw the end of an era.

Gez's pre-disposition has always been for live playing and for music which can move the floor in a club setting. The developing LFO situation was not at all conducive to this approach and he began to realise that only through a seperate project could he actually do what he felt he should be doing. 

Swim had approached LFO in early '95 to remix Immersion (LFO had previously remixed Wir so a contact existed) in the end both Gez (as G-Man) and Mark (as Fawn) did remixes. Gez also sent a speculative cassette of other G-Man tracks at the time. The opening track on the cassette was "Quo Vardis" and the moment Colin & Malka heard it they knew we could do something with it. Over the following weeks a selection of 4 tracks were chosen for what was to become the (1st) G-Man EP.

The record was picked up on very early by the likes of Richie Hawtin, Claude Young, Jeff Mills etc. and owed it's sucess at least in part to the fact that both techno & house DJ's played it. Swim followed it up early this year with the similarly minimally credited G-Man II which acheived even more success than it's predecessor. Both 12's spawned tracks which even 3 years later continue to be licensed to countless compilations and continue to be absolute staples of all minimal DJ's everywhere, Andrew Weatherhall, Sven Vath, Billy Nasty, Daft Punk & countless other all spin those g-tunes.

 The project developed organicly over the year to 1996 where an album and live work became part of a natural flow of events, resulting in the summer of '96 with release of the CD album Kushti which took a minimal mix approach to the material as digitally layered by Vapourspace & Cusp man Mark Gage. For those who prefer to "roll their own" un-mixed tracks could be found on Kushti Vinyl.

'97 saw the branching out of the "g-style" into it's own sub label in the Swim stable. G1 featured Swiss producer DJ Fallovie, G2 the super hip Japanese w-moon from the Metrojuice crew, G3 l features Leeds mega-lads shoota and G4 the g-man himself. Gez has also continued to mash up other peoples tunes to keep his hand in. Recent remixes include, Malka Spigel, DJ Fallovie, w-moon & Vapourspace.
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