David Holmes

David Holmes is the among the best in a growing cadre of invisible-soundtrack producers inspired by the audio verité of classic film composers -- Lalo Schifrin, John Barry, Ennio Morricone -- as well as the usual stable of dancefloor innovators and a large cast of jazz/soul pioneers to boot. Similar to the work of Howie B, Barry Adamson, and Portishead's Geoff Barrow, Holmes' productions are appropriately spacious and theatrical, though usually focused on future club consumption as well. His first album, hotly tipped in England, rose the stakes significantly for his second. Let's Get Killed hardly disappointed, gaining critical and artistic success given the constraints of instrumental dance music. The increased exposure even helped him hire in on Hollywood's bankroll to provide the score for the 1998 feature film Out of Sight.

He followed with the remix collection Stop Arresting Artists, and in 1998 scored Steven Soderbergh's A-list Hollywood feature Out of Sight with a prescient set of groove-funk. (The attention also earned him a place in Entertainment Weekly's list of the Top 100 Creative People in Entertainment.) His single "My Mate Paul" even featured as the theme music to the Sony Playstation game Psybadek. Essential Mix 98/01 followed later that year, and in 1999 This Film's Crap, Let's Slash the Seats was reissued with a bonus disc of rarities and unreleased tracks. Holmes issued his third studio effort, Bow Down to the Exit Sign, in September 2000. One year later, Soderbergh tapped him to produce another feature-film soundtrack, Ocean's Eleven, and it pushed a single -- Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation," as remixed by Junkie XL -- into the charts (as well as the top spot in many countries).

Holmes' next project was a studio band, the Free Association, introduced on the 2002 mix album Come Get It, I Got It. On the record, Holmes mixed and matched older tracks with new productions from him and his lab-mate Stephen Hilton. Late that same year, a full album of new tracks (David Holmes Presents the Free Association) followed it onto the racks. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide

Written by John Bush