Damian Taylor

Career

Taylor's family relocated to New Zealand in 1987. Taylor moved to London in 1997. He spent a decade based in the UK where he established his career as an engineer and programmer, working with producers and mixers such as Guy Sigsworth, Neil McLellan, Adrian Bushby, Pascal Gabriel, Al Clay, Jim Abiss, Steve Osborne, Cameron Craig, and Tom Elmhirst, and artists such as UNKLE, Adam Freeland, and The Prodigy. Taylor regularly worked at studios such as Strongroom, Olympic, Whitfield Street, Metropolis, The Townhouse, Chiswick Reach, Rockfield, and The Pierce Rooms.

After working and travelling full-time with the Icelandic singer Björk from 2005 and 2011 on two albums and an extended world tour, Taylor settled in Montreal, where he custom-built his own studio, Golden Ratio, in the city's Mile-End neighbourhood. The studio was designed with acoustician John Brandt.

Taylor's Grammy-nominated projects include Best Alternative Album for Björk's Vespertine (2001) and Volta (2007), Best Dance Album for The Prodigy's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned (2004), and Best Remix for Sarah Vaughan's "Fever" Adam Freeland Remix (2005).

Taylor has worked with notable artists such as Austra, Diamond Rings, Kasabian, Frou Frou, Stateless, South, The Whip, Freeland, Young Love, Robyn, The B-52s, The Boredoms, The Killers, and Arcade Fire.

Taylor's time as a co-producer in remix teams for UNKLE, Adam Freeland, and Guy Sigsworth (Heavy Rotation) as well as a producer of remixes under both his own name and the Stone Lions moniker have earned him a Grammy nod, remixing tracks of artists such as Arcade Fire, DJ Shadow, UNKLE, Björk, Placebo, Kylie Minogue, Depeche Mode, and Metallica.

Taylor worked as a co-producer on the film soundtrack for Jonathan Glazer's first feature film, Sexy Beast (2000).

Damian created a Max MSP patch called Woodpecker via the Cycling 74 website. The patch was designed after conversations with Arcade Fire, and it creates fast 16th note midi sequences from keyboard input. It allows the performer to bring a very electronic feel into a live ensemble, free of set tempos and click tracks. There are options to allow performers to vary the feel of the sequence, play triplets, and explore various arpeggiation styles.

Recent work includes additional recording on Arcade Fire's Reflektor, vocal production on Austra's Olympia, production and mixing for The Killers on their US #1 Album Battle Born, and mixing and additional production on forthcoming albums by Owen Pallett and Foxtrott. For Björk's multi-media project Biophilia, Taylor performed studio engineering, programming, mixing, and writing. Additionally, he designed and programmed a series of musical performance systems which were used extensively by Björk during the writing of the album and created the audiovisual experience of Biophilia using iPad apps.