Osborne

by Andy Kellman
Based in Ypsilanti, MI, a town located between Ann Arbor and Detroit, producer/DJ Todd Osborn first gained notoriety outside his region as Soundmurderer, releasing hyper-intense ragga jungle productions on his Rewind label with partner SK-1 (Tadd Mullinix, aka Dabrye, James T. Cotton). The attention paid to Soundmurderer peaked with a mix for Violent Turd, 2003's Wired for Sound, which whipped through 60 tracks in less than 70 minutes. Techno and house releases credited to Todd Osborn and Osborne surfaced the previous year on labels like Throw and Ghostly International offshoot Spectral Sound; around the same time, Osborn was also collaborating with Brian Gillespie as Starski & Clutch, who released a handful of ghetto-tech singles on Databass. A handful of Osborne Spectral releases trickled out through 2008, leading to a self-titled album that was unsurprisingly eclectic, with singular spins on numerous strands of house, techno, and electronic pop. He has also operated with Mullinix as TNT -- with releases and remixes that did to acid house what the Soundmurderer & SK-1 material did to drum'n'bass, deploying reverent irreverence -- and has issued cassette-only recordings as Musk and Superstructure.