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Canadian-born electronic musician and music technology educator Deadbeat (Scott Monteith) produces and performs a wide variety of sounds rooted in the Jamaican dub tradition. Initially associated with Montreal's fertile electronic scene, he first made an impact with abstract dub albums such as 2002's Wild Life Documentaries, which appeared on the renowned ~scape label run by Stefan Betke (Pole). Monteith relocated to Berlin in 2006 and began focusing more on live performances, appearing at numerous clubs and festivals throughout the world. Albums such as 2008's Roots and Wire incorporated dubstep and techno, while 2011's Drawn and Quartered was a monolithic experimental dub opus. While Deadbeat released numerous club-friendly 12"s throughout the 2010s, the majority of his full-lengths during the decade were vocal-heavy collaborations, ranging from 2014's The Infinity Dub Sessions (with reggae singer Paul St. Hilaire) to 2019's Trinity Thirty (with Camara), a reinterpretation of Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Session.
Originally from Kitchener, Ontario, Monteith moved to Montreal in late 1996 and quickly became enthralled by the city's underground community of digital musicians and artists, eventually co-founding the multimedia collective Covert Ops. Working for music software developer Applied Acoustic Systems, he began recording music as Deadbeat in 1998, and started releasing minimal techno 12"s in 2000. The murky dub-techno full-length Primordia was released by Mitchell Akiyama's Intr_version label in 2001. Follow-up Wild Life Documentaries was released by ~scape in 2002, and Deadbeat contributed to that year's scene-encapsulating Montreal Smoked Meat compilation, issued by Force Inc. Monteith collaborated with Stephen Beaupré as the microhouse duo Crackhaus, debuting with 2003's It's a Crackhaus Thing (Onitor) which was succeeded by 2004's Spells Disaster (Mutek), both of which were significantly more lighthearted than Monteith's solo work.
The ~scape label remained Deadbeat's home for the 2004 release Something Borrowed, Something Blue along with 2005's New World Observer, which introduced vocals to the producer's dub-heavy sound. Journeyman's Annual from 2007 continued on this path with dancehall and dubstep figuring into the mix, while 2008's Roots and Wire -- released by the Canadian label Wagon Repair -- was more stripped-down and club-ready. A dub techno mix on The Agriculture titled Radio Rothko followed in 2010.
By 2011, ~scape was no more, but with the label as his inspiration, Monteith formed BLKRTZ and released the Deadbeat album Drawn and Quartered on the imprint that year. The project's eighth official studio effort, simply titled Eight, arrived on BLKRTZ in 2012 with guest appearances from Dandy Jack, Mathew Jonson, and Danuel Tate. The Infinity Dub Sessions, a full collaboration with vocalist Paul St. Hilaire, was released in 2014. Additionally, Deadbeat's first three full-lengths for ~scape were remastered and issued as LPs 2002-2005. Walls & Dimensions, featuring guests such as Fink and Howie B, landed in 2015, with an instrumental version following the next year. Following a 2017 BLKRTZ reissue of Roots and Wire, as well as singles such as Our Rotten Roots (on Echocord Colour), Deadbeat released the full-length Wax Poetic for This Our Great Resolve, featuring spoken word contributions from guests such as Gudrun Gut and Thomas Fehlmann, in 2018. A more straightforward dub reggae single titled "Wail Ball & Cry" followed shortly afterward, and dub-techno full-length Waking Life appeared at the end of the year. In 2019, Deadbeat and Camara (a fellow Canadian living in Berlin) released Trinity Thirty, a full cover of Cowboy Junkies' 1988 breakthrough album The Trinity Session. ~ Jason Birchmeier & Paul Simpson, Rovi
