Billain

Living through the unimaginable reality of the darkness brought through war in his home city of Sarajevo, alongside being heavily influenced as a child by Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, John Carpenter, Katsuhiro Otomo and the music from numerous Anime dark movies, Billain started to visualise dark places which he combined with a deep interest in science, soon he started to sketch and paint his ideas. After some time this form of expression was not enough and between 97-98 Billain turned towards music production to further express the complex ideas and visions forming inside his head. Billain schooled himself in the techniques and theories of music production which naturally led him to techno music, with influence coming from a variety of sources including Iannis Xenakis, Stockhausen, Aphex Twin, The Prodigy and also some early Metalheadz releases. After producing around 300 minimal techno tracks alongside playing live DJ sets Billain wanted more... Techno was just too simple. New influence came through Ed Rush & Optical's legendary "Wormhole' LP, and this was the turning point into a world of techno influenced drum and bass.. Billains direction had changed forever... In the year 2000 Billain became part of the legendary Sarajevo drum and bass collective known as 'Kontra'. The collective brought some of the finest artists in drum and bass to the country for the first time, including legends Matrix & Optical, Optiv, Teebee,Stakka and Skynet, Kemal, Black Sun Empire, Corrupt Souls, and many more. Shortly afterwards, Billain started producing drum and bass for the first time, purely for personal enjoyment and development. After a while of producing and collecting a vast array of tracks and custom sample libraries major disaster struck! A freak hardware failure led to the complete loss of all Billain's files - full finished tracks alongside hours of sampled sound design and hard work were lost forever totaling almost 160GB of projects. Many people may of quit at this point, but Billain tirelessly set straight back to work.. creating sounds again from scratch and starting new projects. Billain was now developing an extremley original, creative and exciting array of sounds. Through his early music productions he was soon discovered and approached by large companies in need of professional sound design. This resulted in Billain being in heavy demand for sound design work for major companies such as Q Department in New York working on material for films, documentaries and advertising. work which he is still involved in to to the present day. Through increasing internet exposure, the world started to wake up to the fresh and original sound of Billain. Initial track signings came from drum and bass labels Breed 12 Inches and C2D, after further developing his own unique sound and style more signings started coming from established dutch labels Syndrome Audio, Citrus and more recently Rise Audio in London. Billain's tracks started to receive an increasing amount of attention and support from the worldwide drum and bass community now receiving regular plays from the likes of Tech Itch, Audio, Cause4Concern, John B, Concord Dawn, Teebee, Phace, Misanthrop, and Allied to name a few. The worldwide exposure of Billain's music almost instantly led to an overwhelming amount of requests for live DJ shows around the globe. Regardless of being an exciting and highly accomplished DJ, Billain dedicated himself and focused his time 100% on his sonic pursuits, and he chooses to play only a handful of gigs per year for this reason. This decision hasn't stopped Billain sharing numerous stages with renowned names within drum and bass such as Calyx, Bad Company, Phace, Allied, Black Sun Empire, Nocturnal, Loxy, Kryptic Minds, Kulak and TN1 as well as playing high profile events such as MTV music depot, Red Bull shows, Kontra, Exit Festival, LED Festival, Burning the Beach and a recent UK debut at a Rise Audio. In 2011 Billain is more in demand than ever, with an increasing amount of tracks surfacing across a variety of high calibre labels, exciting new collaborations with similar minded artists like InsideInfo, Codex, Allied and Rawtekk, alongside consistent requests for live DJ appearances around the world, this is an exciting time for this deeply talented individual... (N.K.) For DJ bookings worldwide contact: events@riseaudio.co.uk