The Escapists

Biography

The CD came about due to a programme called Vinyl Dreams produced by a charity, Shape in Islington. Vinyl Dreams provides a unique opportunity for disabled musicians to both record and perform new music.
Additional funding came from Islington Council and the Arts Council.

The band grew out of the Rainbow Community in Kentish Town back in ’96. Two collectives followed, one a jamming sound system ‘Sounds Anonymous’ and the other ‘Binky Bonk’ drum circle. There was cross-pollination between the two collectives with resulting residencies at Megatripolis, Hibernation, Return To The Source and Undertow as well as gigs at Bagley’s, HQ’s and Glastonbury. From 1998 to 2001 the collectives held down a series of underground music spaces in the Kings Cross area.
The Escapists formed from this background in 2001 to put together the CD and work on some more structured ideas for live performance. Much of the inspiration comes from the band’s experience of the mental health system. The resulting music explores the boundary between acoustic instruments and electronica and covers the genres of dance, ambient, trip hop, folk and weirdness.
Caglar the newest member of the group is one of the most exciting filmmakers around and provides a vivid backdrop to what is happening when on stage.

In October 2001 The Escapists played a tour called ‘Attitude is Everything’.
Venues included Dingwalls in Camden, Colchester Arts Centre, Brighton Concorde, Liverpool Picket and Manchester Band on the Wall. Since then we have been playing around the London circuit.

As I have been playing with a wide variety of musicians and I wanted this to be reflected in the CD. I decided to do each track with a different co-producer, in a different studio and with different musicians.
This made life a little difficult as I had to learn new working methods for ea