Paul D. Miller

DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid

While prolific and highly regarded as a writer and conceptual artist, Paul D. Miller is probably most well known under the moniker of his "constructed persona as "DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid". Miller has remixed and recorded with a panoply of artists ranging from Metallica to Steve Reich to Killah Priest, and has performed in a uniquely wide variety of situations throughout the world. His latest CD - a compilation of classic reggae tracks - is In Fine Style, DJ Spooky Presents 50,000 Volts of Trojan Records!!!! Other recent releases are Drums of Death, with Dave Lombardo of Slayer and Chuck D. of Public Enemy; the groundbreaking Optometry (Thirsty Ear Records); and Millers award-winning book Rhythm Science (MIT Press). He is currently touring the world with his multimedia/film/performance piece DJ Spooky's Rebirth of A Nation.

Paul D. Miller is a conceptual artist, writer, and musician working in New York. His written work has appeared in The Village Voice, The Source, Artforum, Raygun, Rap Pages, Paper Magazine, and a host of other periodicals. Miller's first collection of essays, Rhythm Science, was published by MIT Press in April 2004, and was included in several year-end lists of the best books of 2004, including the Guardian (UK) and Publishers Weekly. In 2005, Sound Unbound, an anthology of writings on sound art and multi-media by contemporary cultural theorists will follow Rhythm Science.

Miller's work as a media artist has appeared in a wide variety of contexts such as the Whitney Biennial; The Venice Biennial for Architecture (year 2000); the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany; Kunsthalle, Vienna; The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and many other museums and galleries. His 2004 solo show at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, Path Is Prologue, echoed his live music/theater/film performance, “DJ Spooky's Rebirth of A Nation, which ran simultaneously at the Lincoln Center Festival after premieres in Vienna and at Spoleto USA in Charleston, SC and continues to tour globally.

But even with all this, Miller is most well known under the moniker of his "constructed persona" as “DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid". Miller has recorded a huge volume of music and has collaborated a wide variety of musicians and composers such as Iannis Xenakis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Butch Morris, Kool Keith a.k.a. Doctor Octagon, Pierre Boulez, Killa Priest from Wu-Tang Clan, Steve Reich, Yoko Ono and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth among many others. He also composed and recorded the music score for the Cannes and Sundance Award winning film Slam, starring critically acclaimed poet Saul Williams.

Miller's recent albums include Optometry (2002), a jazz project featuring Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Joe Mcphee, Carl Hancock Rux, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and High Priest from Anti-Pop Consortium; Dubtometry (2003), a dub remix of the same, featuring Lee “Scratch” Perry and Mad Professor; and Riddim Clash (2004), a collaboration with Twilight Dub Sound System. In June 2004, Thirsty Ear Recordings released his two-CD megamix called Celestial Mechanix, featuring eleven recent DJ Spooky remixes.

In addition to his numerous records and articles released under the DJ Spooky name, other recent projects include the Unfinished Stories - a three way collaborative effort between Pulitzer Prize winning NY Times Critic At Large, Margo Jefferson, and Francesca Harper. Another important project was a collaboration with Bernard Tschumi, Dean of Columbia University's architecture department, and author of Praxis: Event Cities. This piece debuted at the Venice Bienniale of Architecture 2000. In the magazine world, Miller is co-publisher along with legendary African American downtown poet Steve Cannon of the magazine, A Gathering of Tribes – a periodical dedicated to new works by writers from a multicultural context and he was the first Editor-at-large of the cutting edge digital media magazine, Artbyte: The Magazine of Digital Culture.

As DJ Spooky, Miller continues his globe-trotting appearances. In 2004 he played at festivals from France to Mexico City, performed a DJ concerto in Oakland and at Yale, gave numerous talks at prominent universities, and participated in the Microsoft's International DJ Summit. Miller's latest collaborative release Drums of Death features Dave Lombardo of Slayer, Chuck D. of Public Enemy, Vernon Reid of Living Color, and Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto. Drums of Death was released in April 2005 on Thirsty Ear Records.

In June of 2006, DJ Spooky and Trojan Records released In Fine Style: 50,000 Volts of Trojan Records. In Fine Style is his way of introducing the vintage reggae sounds he grew up on to the DJ, club and art worlds he spins in today, and includes recordings by legends Lee Perry, John Holt, Desmond Dekker, Sly & Robbie, Peter Tosh and Barrington Levy. DJ Spooky set out not only to create a new mood for the club scene but to take club goers through the vital history of Trojan and its direct impact on DJ and club culture to this day. “This mix is a combination of the old, the new, and the in between,” he explains. “That's kind of the point: DJ culture in the 21st century is as much about the soundsystem as the playlist. I wanted to make a mix that reflected that: old and new.”

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