#antech

My Top Drop 2018 Favourite Wines @bchospitality @topDropCanada @antech_limoux @blackbird_vineyards @borgogno1761 @DamilanoBarolo @vollereauxchamp #champagne #barolo

Top Drop Vancouver

Top Drop is the last major wine tasting in Vancouver before the start of summer. Top Drop is meant to represent the best in terroir and winemaker craft. Nature and Nurture.  Wineries from around the world are selected for the best of both, and we were not disappointed.  In my 5 star wine rating, most wines were at least 4 stars.  Below are my 4.5 star and 5 star rated wines…

Antech

When I was brought up in the 1970's, my parents had the radio on all day, I'd be hearing Motown, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, as well as my dad's tapes of Sicilian folk music. At the same time my uncle was regularly playing guitar in a local band, and used to take me with him to these gigs. All of this inspired me to start learning the guitar at 8 years old. I've been playing guitar as my first instrument since.

I was also tinkering with gadgets at the time, taking apart radios and turntables, seeing how things worked and modifying them for my purposes, I built my own reverb tank from the spring from inside an old heater at 11 years old, and a mobile sound system for my bike !

Once I was at secondary school, I was exposed to a lot more influences, and heard electro for the first time. When I heard 'planet rock' I was blown away, there was no turning back.

My guitar starting gathering dust as I started scratching, looping beats on a cassette recorder with the pause button, scratching, and playing my sisters old yamaha keyboard (which I later realised was actually a full on FM synth with midi !) whilst recording onto another tape machine trying to figure out how to create the sounds I was hearing. Having got my hands on an 808 a few years later, I realised what I was missing back then !

Around the late 80's and early 90's rave culture exploded in the UK, and my long term friend and Quote Record partner, Hans-Jürgen and I started a local club night called ‘Club Gaia', we played mostly electronic music, cine film abstract loops, plenty of smoke and strobes and some live bands. We then joined forces with a local rave crew to promote more full on acid house / techno nights ... the legendary 'decompression'. A good time was had by all. The excitement I felt from the music during those times, hearing the first early techno and acid, still sculpts my music to this day.

At the same time, I was also involved with Neil Sanford, of Earth Leakage Trip, who released the seminal acid house classic 'psychotronic EP' as the first release on Moving Shadow in 1992. I was later to join forces with Neil, to release our own productions under the name 'Earth Leakage Trip'.

Currently, for Quote Records, I am recording tracks as 'Antech', a tightly structured deep tech sound sprinkled with a touch of my soulful background and an alter ego, 'Antonio Amore' which unleashes the more freestyle analog jams I create, that capture a more exciting, dangerous sound, one that can be played out live easily, and captures the pure joy of being 'in the moment' with the music creation process.

My musical direction is one of authenticity. What is in my heart and soul is all I am interested in creating. Commercial appeal no longer influences my artistic decisions, I am fully aware that music which is not authentic when made, is easily dismissed by the discerning public. People can tell when love has gone into the music making process :-)