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Shadow Dancer began in the summer of 2006 almost by accident.

Brothers Paul and Alan Farrier had been writing music since childhood, drawn by their love of artists such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, Human League and Pet Shop Boys to follow synthesizers rather than guitars.  Although the pop and video game music of the ’80s was their initial inspiration, it was the sounds coming out of Detroit (Underground Resistance, Axis, Planet E, Submerge), Chicago (Trax, Relief) and the European techno scene (Warp, Ideal, Bush, Tresor, Basic Channel, R&S, Harthouse, Novamute) that started an obsession with electronic dance music. And, having previously created tracks using tape overdubs and a limited sampler, they started to build up a small studio of second-hand synths.

Originally from Liverpool, the brothers were pulled towards Manchester in the ’90s by it’s musical legacy – club nights like the Hacienda, Bugged Out!, Versivo, Robodisco and Drama, and labels like Paper and Skam gave the city a strong identity.  Under the name ‘Pinback’, they organized occasional nights around south Manchester, DJing in bars in the Fallowfield and Withington areas, and performed a headline live set as part of the 2001 Manchester Music Festival.

In 2003, Pinback came to end due to damaged studio equipment and Paul & Al’s commitments to their daytime jobs.  Three years later, having tried out some PC DAW software – and with a challenge from a producer met on MySpace to remix one of their tracks – Paul was once more bitten by the producing bug and Shadow Dancer was “born”.

After compiling two self-released retrospective digital EPs, ‘Machine Code’ and ’80somethings’ (comprising of material recorded between 1999-2002), and releasing another digital EP, ‘DirtBox’, on the New York-based The Other Cosmos label, Shadow Dancer were approached by Alex Ridha of Boys Noize to produce a four-track release for Boysnoize Records.  The result was the ‘Shadow Dancer EP’ (sometimes known as ‘Poke EP’), released in July 2007, and finding favour with DJs such as Busy P, Soulwax, Adam Freeland, Teenage Bad Girl, Erol Alkan, DJ Mehdi, Mr. Oizo, Kavinsky, Proxy, Shir Khan, Malente and Digitalism.

The relationship with BNR continued with the 2008 EPs ‘Cowbois’ and ‘Soap’, along with a debut album, ‘Golden Traxe’ – a culmination of their electro, techno, acid and house influences -  due to appear in January 2009.

Since their live debut as Shadow Dancer supporting The Whip in Manchester on New Year’s Eve 2006, the brothers have played (both live and DJ sets) alongside Boys Noize, Strip Steve, D.I.M., Arnaud Rebotini, Sinden, Surkin, Para One, Das Glow, Housemeister, The Glimmers, Crookers, Fake Blood, Kid 606, FC Kahuna, Mike Monday, Teenage Bad Girl, Filthy Dukes, Dolby Anol, Trevor Jackson, Dilemn, Soulwax, Riton, Mixhell, A-Trak, Jean Nipon, Radioclit, Gucci Soundsystem, Ivan Smagghe,  Les Petits Pilous and many others.

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