Wayne Gerard Trotman

Formative years

On 16 May 1964, Wayne Gerard Trotman was born in San Fernando, Trinidad. By the age of six, he was experimenting with recording on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He recorded science fiction stories in which he performed all the dialogue and created all the sound effects. At this time, he also developed an interest in drawing, painting and photography.

Early musical development

Trotman attributes hearing the popular singles "Popcorn" (Gershon Kingsley) by Hot Butter in 1972 and Equinoxe Part 5 by Jean Michel Jarre in 1979 as the catalysts for his development as a composer and producer of electronic music.

In 1979 he received a Casio VL-1, also known as a Casio VL-Tone, as a gift and began to teach himself music composition. He continued his experimentation with tape loops, overdubbing and most notably the creation of rhythms using only audio feedback. Trotman is a self-taught musician and has never had traditional piano lessons nor does he possess substantial knowledge of reading or writing musical notation.

Trotman found the Casio VL-1 limiting and as a result, his initial exploits in music creation were very frustrating. In 1981 he began using a Casiotone MT-70 electronic keyboard and produced compositions recorded using two audio cassette recorders and a mono echo recorder. By 1983 he had produced over 200 experimental, often bizarre, home recordings.

Fine Art

Trotman studied history and art at Presentation College, San Fernando, where he won the Presentation College Art Prize twice: 1979 and 1982. During the early 1980s, he also won national art prizes in Trinidad and Tobago. His artwork during this period consisted largely of comic book illustrations and acrylic or oil paintings. Photographs of his work were submitted to the Heatherley School of Fine Art in Chelsea, London winning him a place to study art and design there in 1984.

Emigration

In August 1984 Trotman moved to England to study art and design at to the Heatherley School of Fine Art in Chelsea, London. In 1985, Trotman's painting titled Psychedelic Eric was accepted for the London Youth Festival exhibition and he was featured in both The Caribbean Times and West Indian World newspapers.

Professional music composition

In 1985 Trotman purchased his first "professional" electronic keyboard – the Roland JX-3P and this instrument has featured in virtually all his recorded music since that time. But his transition to professional musician came with the addition of the Ensoniq SQ-80 synthesiser in 1988, swiftly followed by the addition of an Ensoniq Mirage sampler and Alesis HR-16 drum machine. January 2014 saw Trotman at number one on the Reverbnation electronica chart for the UK, and sixth globally.

Film, video, and published work

Between the late 1980s and mid 1990s Trotman produced compositions for British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) as well as low-budget independent film productions. He completed his second feature film script, titled Ashes to Ashes in 1994, and in 1995 his short film London: Metropolis of the Future premiered at the British Short Film Festival.

Trotman directed, co-produced, scored and edited the British independent film Ashes to Ashes in 1998. He also played the film's lead role of Gabriel Darbeaux and used real martial arts weapons including the nunchaku or two-piece rod .

In 2006, Trotman co-produced a training DVD, which tackles the root cause of anxiety and panic attacks: The Fight or Flight Response.

Between 2006 and 2009, he wrote part one of the epic "Psychic Wars" science fiction saga Veterans of the Psychic Wars. Between 2010 and 2015, Trotman wrote the first instalment of the "Kairi Chronicles" titled Kaya Abaniah and the Father of the Forest, which is also set in his fictional Psychic Wars universe. Kaya Abaniah and the Father of the Forest is a coming-of-age, science-fiction adventure story. It is set in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and presented with much of its dialogue in authentic Trinidadian Creole. It explores the culture of Trinidad and Tobago and combines legends and characters from Trinidad and Tobago folklore, including Papa Bois, Soucouyant, Douen and Mama Dlo, with the themes of wildlife conservation, redemption, and forgiveness. The novel was academically reviewed in Supernatural Literature, a 3-volume encyclopaedia published by St. James Press covering the literature of the supernatural across the canon, including such notable works as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Editor Thomas Riggs noted that Kaya Abaniah and the Father of the Forest was the most recent work reviewed in Supernatural Literature, and reviewer Sean Hutchison credited Trotman with rewriting the Soucouyant myth.

Also in 2015, Trotman published Images of Cuba a travel photography book featuring his photographs of the landscapes, beaches, architecture, classic cars and multi-ethnic people of Cuba. He also published Classic Cars of Cuba, which features his photographs of Cuba's antique cars from the 1940s and 1950s.

In November 2016, Trotman and his wife, Sherrie, wrote the cookbook Rum & Red Peppers: 80 Caribbean, Armenian, Middle Eastern & Mediterranean Recipes. In this book, which features 164 full-colour photographs, Trotman is also credited with photography and design.

Screenplay

Novels

Non-fiction

Blogs

On his blog, Red Moon Chronicle: Reviews & Interviews – Dedicated to Science Fiction, Fantasy and the Speculation of Creative Minds, Trotman has interviewed Syd Mead, John Howe, Kevin J. Anderson, Larry Fast, Alan Dean Foster, Robert J. Sawyer, Linda Nagata, Jeremy Robinson, Chris Moore, Armen Chakmakian and others. Trotman's second blog, Psychic War Journal, explores the fictional characters, worlds and cultures created in his science fiction novels.

Discography

Films

Other interests

Trotman has had training in several martial arts including karate, taekwondo, Chinese martial arts and fencing. He is a self-taught exponent of nunchaku. In 2012, he released the eBook Ashes to Ashes: Screenplay, and also became Kingston upon Thames Adult Intellectual Chess Champion in the Surrey Hundreds All Surrey Chess Championship.