Warmdesk

Warmdesk is the project of Chicago-based producer William Selman. Named after an obscure single by an early 90s group out of Cologne that inspired him initially, the sound of Warmdesk has evolved from his earliest work of musique concrete and skewed rhythms into combining these elements into stripped-down minimal techno. Still present are the dubby textures and samples from everyday life, but now they coexist with smooth chords and rhythmic grooves. Selman has released material on many labels, including A Touch of Class, Deluxe, Bip-Hop, Static Caravan and Fallt. His first album was the "Guero Variations" cd for the well-regarded Deluxe label (home to Electric Birds, Blechtum from Blechdom and Matmos's early endeavors). The record brought together the musique concrete and techno as it is composed almost completely with sounds from the interior of the piano without actually playing the keys; according to the Portland Mercury's Dave Segal, it "makes musique concrete detritus shimmy and shake with glee." The album made it into several critics' top lists for records of 2003. More recently, he has released two 12"s on Andy Vaz's Background Records' "House" sublabel A Touch of Class that showed off more dancefloor-friendly cuts (while retaining the sampling aesthetic) that quickly found their way into top tens of DJs like Steve Bug and Mathias Schaffhäuser as well as receiving the highest accolades from critics. Currently in the works are more releases for several labels and a collaboration of dancefloor cut-and-paste with Forte/Neuton artist Matthew Mercer called 2400W. He also runs A Posteriori Recordings which releases occasional one-off records of a more conceptual theme--the last being “Guero Variations Variations.” During the day, Selman is a software and database engineer.