Biography

TPower's Mark Royal first came to prominence working with hardcore techno group Bass Selective, whose 1991 hit "Blow Out Part II" was an influential proto-jungle track. He's since risen to new acclaim as a solo artist with TPower's experimental blend of lush ambience and often over-the-top rhythmic complexity. His 12-inch "Horny Mutant Jazz," as well as the follow-up full-length The Self-Evident Truth of an Intuitive Mind (both for the Sound of the Underground label) are widely considered early masterpieces of ambient-jungle, and did much conceptual trailblazing where jungle's absorption of jazz and other more measured, relaxed compositional elements are concerned. Although subsequent work has strayed from jungle's rhythmic syncopation into more traditional techno and even entirely beatless ambient, drum'n'bass remains the core element of much of TPower's music. Royal's roots are, not surprisingly, in hip-hop, in which he immersed himself during it's U.K. heyday in the early to mid-'80s. Burning out on hip-hop early, Royal's affection for breaks and hard-hitting rhythms followed him into his explorations of the music of David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Pat Metheny, and those two components -- complex breaks and a keen sense of melody -- inform much of his solo work to the present day. ~ Sean Cooper, Rovi