Phil Kieran

Phil Kieran

Phil Kieran is a techno, minimal techno, tech house and electro artist from Belfast, United Kingdom. He builds his work around club-focused electronic music, and releases on labels including Skint, Soma, NovaMute and Cocoon. His career spans more than a decade of releases, and he is also known as a DJ with a strong reputation in clubs and in DJ magazine’s global Top 100 DJs poll.

Career and releases

Kieran begins releasing music under his own name after years of making records in the electronic scene. He develops a profile through a long run of dancefloor releases and a club reputation built in Belfast, where he cuts his clubbing teeth at Shine. His releases place him alongside artists and labels associated with techno and related electronic styles, and he works with Cocoon, the German label run by Sven Väth, on the album Shh.

Shh

Shh is his debut album under his own name. The record draws on a wide range of influences, including dub reggae, hardcore, early 1990s electronica, Autechre, Black Dog, Warp-related sounds and the futuristic techno style with which he is associated. For the album he uses archive sound-lab recordings from the 1950s and 1960s, combines them with older samples from unusual sources, and adds live instrumentation. The recording includes live drums, electric, acoustic and bass guitar, live keyboard parts and guest vocals. The album is presented as a personal synthesis of the music he has absorbed over time, while still aiming at both home listening and club playback.

Alloy Mental and soundtrack work

He also creates the live techno punk project Alloy Mental, which merges Joy Division-style basslines with hard, punk-influenced techno. In addition, he moves into film scoring, contributing the soundtrack for Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience with fellow Irish musician David Holmes.