Rob Dougan, also known as
Rob D (born 1969
SydneySydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
,
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
), is a genre-blending music composer. Mixing elements of
orchestral musicAn orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
,
trip hopTrip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...
, and
bluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
y vocals, his work is tangentially relatable to
electronic musicElectronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
. He was known primarily for his breakthrough 1995 single "
Clubbed to DeathClubbed to Death is a 1995 song by Rob Dougan. It was given renewed attention in 1999 due to its inclusion in the film The Matrix. It was re-released as a single in 2002 with new remixes.-Release:...
(Kurayamino Variation)", further popularised by 1999's
The MatrixThe Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
soundtrack. "Clubbed to Death" was re-released on his debut album
Furious AngelsFurious Angels is the debut album by Rob Dougan, released in June 2002 in the United Kingdom and in July 2003 in the United States and Europe...
in 2001, seven years after its initial release.
History
In 1990, Rob Dougan's friend
RolloRollo Armstrong is one half of the music producers/remixers team Rollo and Sister Bliss and is a founding member of the electronic music group Faithless.-Early life:...
brought him from Australia to
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. From 1991 to 1995, "Rob D" was a
ProducerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
and
remixA remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
artist. In 1994 his remixes started charting in the UK. He also released his first single, "Hard Times".
In 1995, his hit single
Clubbed to DeathClubbed to Death is a 1995 song by Rob Dougan. It was given renewed attention in 1999 due to its inclusion in the film The Matrix. It was re-released as a single in 2002 with new remixes.-Release:...
gave him a recognised name in the UK dance club scene. He produced half a dozen remixes of it, including the "Kurayamino Variation". His label
Mo'Wax RecordsMo' Wax was a UK-based record label owned by James Lavelle, who founded it in the early 1990s with Tim Goldsworthy. Steve Finan became co-owner shortly after. The label came to recognition for being at the forefront of trip hop, turntablism and alternative rap during the mid-90s...
was pleased and commissioned the follow-up, "Clubbed to Death 2" (later the bonus track on the album). CTD2 was never released as a single, but appeared on the
James LavelleJames Lavelle is a DJ, electronic recording artist and record label boss.-Early years:Born into a family with a strong tradition of music, Lavelle first began by learning the cello with his grandmother in Oxford....
disc of the 1996 DJ mix
compilation albumA compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...
,
Cream Live 2.
"Furious Angels" was not released on Mo'Wax but Dougan eventually released it as a single in 1998 on
Rollo'sRollo Armstrong is one half of the music producers/remixers team Rollo and Sister Bliss and is a founding member of the electronic music group Faithless.-Early life:...
label
Cheeky RecordsCheeky Records was founded in 1991 by the producer/remixer Rollo Armstrong, brother of Dido.After releasing Frankë's - "Understand This Groove" and Gloworm's "I Lift My Cup" the label collapsed but was rescued in 1994 by Champion Records and was later bought out by BMG in 1999.-Notable artists:*...
. Dougan worked for the following six years, doing remixes and licensing his tracks, in order to self-produce the album which was backed by a full
orchestraAn orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
and a full choir.
In 1999, his exposure increased dramatically when his "Clubbed To Death (Kurayamino Variation)" was featured on the soundtrack of
The MatrixThe Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
. He has also provided remixes of songs by
U2U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
,
MobyRichard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...
and
Kylie MinogueKylie Ann Minogue, OBE - often known simply as Kylie - is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing...
, and contributed two more tracks to the soundtrack of 2003's Matrix sequel
The Matrix ReloadedThe Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 American science fiction film and the second installment in The Matrix trilogy, written and directed by the Wachowskis. It premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and went on general release by Warner Bros. in North American theaters on May 15,...
,
Château and
Kung Fu (A shortened version of "Furious Angels" made for "The Matrix Reloaded"). Also on
The Matrix Reloaded DVD the background movie has the
I'm Not Driving Anymore Instrumental soundtrack.
In 2002 in the UK, and 2003 in the rest of the world, Dougan released his debut album
Furious AngelsFurious Angels is the debut album by Rob Dougan, released in June 2002 in the United Kingdom and in July 2003 in the United States and Europe...
to critical acclaim and some surprise from the new tone of his work, as well as from his own
Leonard CohenLeonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
-esque gravel-voiced vocals. Later in 2003, a two-disc re-release of
Furious Angels featured all-instrumental versions on the second disc.
In 2006, Dougan was reportedly writing "a couple of songs" for
SugababesThe Sugababes are an English pop girl group based in London, consisting of members Heidi Range, Amelle Berrabah and Jade Ewen. The Sugababes were formed in 1998 with founding members Siobhán Donaghy, Mutya Buena and Keisha Buchanan. Their debut album, One Touch, was released in 2000 under London...
(for whom he produced the single "
Too Lost in You"Too Lost in You" is a pop/R&B song covered by British girl group Sugababes from their third studio album Three . The song was released on 15 December, 2003 as the album's second single. It was written by Diane Warren and co-produced by Andy Bradfield and Rob Dougan...
"), and working on two albums of his own — one original, one classical.
As of April 2008, Dougan is mentioned in a wine blog as an owner of a wine vineyard La Peira en Damaisela, leaving questions about the supposed two albums he had been working on.
A short film made for jewellery designer Solange Azagury-Patridge, "The Letter", directed by
Laurence DunmoreLaurence Dunmore is a graphic designer and film director whose first major collaboration was the British production of The Libertine in 2005...
and starring
Thandie NewtonThandiwe Nashita "Thandie" Newton is a British actress. She has appeared in a number of British and American films, including The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission: Impossible II, Crash, Run, Fatboy, Run and W....
and
Jason IsaacsJason Isaacs is an English actor born in Liverpool, who is best known for his performance as the villain Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, the brutal Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot and as lifelong criminal Michael Caffee in the internationally broadcast American television series...
features new music by Rob Dougan; the short film, however, does not mention the title of the song.
Studio albums
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- Formats: CD
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
, digital downloadA music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
, LPThe LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
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Singles