Daniel Bell
(7th City, Accelerate, Perlon _Detroit / USA)
While living in Detroit during the 90's, Daniel Bell created a new musical vocabulary for techno music based on "Blips" and "Bleeps" and streamlined repetetive rhythms. Based on nearby Chicago "track" records, he reduced that sound further into funky, streamlined grooves. The formula proved to be successful and helped launch a new aesthetic in techno and house music known as "Minimal". His music went on to influence a generation of producers from Josh Wink and Richie Hawtin to the minimal house sound in Germany. He's best known for his timeless classic "Losing Control" and releases on his own label "Accelerate".
Born in Sacramento California, Dan had a surprise success with his first 12' released on +8 records while still in film school near Toronto, Canada in 1990. The record was "Technarchy" co-produced by Richie Hawtin and John Aquaviva, and it spurred a move by him to the "eastside" of Detroit, Mi after graduation (the new Eminem movie ?8 Mile? features a scene filmed behind his old apartment). After touring and recording extensively throughout 1991 and 1992, including a 38-date American tour opening for Moby and The Prodigy, Daniel left +8 to start his own company, Accelerate Communications in 1992.
With Accelerate he released a small string of influential releases. Based on nearby Chicago "track" records, he reduced that sound further into funky, streamlined grooves. The formula proved to be successful and helped launch a new aesthetic in techno and house music known as "Minimal".
With the overwhelming success of his "Losing Control" single (an international underground hit in 1994), Daniel set up Seventh City Distribution. For the next four years he worked to assist smaller Midwest labels to get distribution in overseas markets. He helped finance the start-ups of several labels including Anthony Shakir's "Frictional" and Dopplereffekt?s "Dataphysix". He also created three new labels - 7th City, which to this day releases cutting-edge techno music, Elevate (with then unknown house producer Theo Parrish) and Harmonie Park (originally with Rich Wade). Daniel also co-owned "Rotate", a record store across the river from Detroit in Windsor Canada for two years.
Because of the workload of owning and operating many ventures his music production ceased for a few years. In 2000 he released his first mix c.d. with Tresor Records entitled "The Button Down Mind of Daniel Bell" and in a surprise move relocated to Berlin, Germany. In Berlin he has developed and promoted new talent for his 7th City label and has quietly restarted his recording career with a series of remixes for a diverse range of artists including, John Tejada, Pantytec, Akufen, and Anthony Shakir. In February 2003 he will release his second mix cd "The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back" on the Paris-based label Logistic. In the near future, Daniel will start another new label to release his latest productions.
As well as producing Daniel has also kept a busy dj schedule for the past 8 years. He has played many major venues throughout the world including Liquid Room/Tokyo (2), Lost/London, Rex Club/Paris, Limelight/New York (4), Redno5/Chicago, Nightown/Rotterdam, Nitsa/Barcelona (3), Tresor/Globus (>10), Weetamix/Geneva (2), Yellow/Tokyo, Rockets/Osaka, Staples/San Francisco to name a few. Daniel's dj gigs have brought him all over the world including every major US and Canadian city, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Italy, England, Scotland, France, Finland, Japan, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and the Netherlands. He currently has a residency at Robert Johnson in Frankfurt/Offenbach.