Bio Full Biography »

Upon the 1991 dissolution of the British trance-rock quartet Loop, bassist Neil McKay and John Wills formed the Hair and Skin Trading Company, leaving guitarists Robert Hampson and Scott Dawson to found the highly experimental Main, a project combining the aesthetics of ambient music with layered tapestries of droning electric guitar textures and dark, ominous soundscapes. Main's debut EP releases, 1991's Hydra and 1992's Calm -- later collected as the Hydra-Calm LP -- were their most aggressive, as well as the closest to conventional rock idioms; beginning with 1992's stellar Dry Stone Feed, the duo began exploring ambient sounds, gradually eliminating all traces of percussion and rhythm from their work. With 1993's Firmament and the triple-LP set Motion Pool, Main began pushing into "drumless space," a realm of cold, alien sound with little resemblance to conventional musical structure; 1994's Firmament II severed all remaining ties to tradition, focusing instead on two epic, abstra...