Download Clip - .MP4 - 16MBThis compelling collective are top exponents of audiovisual mixing. As performers and creatives, Addictive TV’s AV maestros Graham Daniels and Tolly have twice been voted #1 in DJ Magazine’s annual VJ Poll. And together with producers Nick Clarke and Francoise Lamy, they have even founded their own London-based visual music festival called Optronica that they run with the British Film Institute.
Addictive TV have produced a huge range of material. Their influential Channel 4 series Transambient, for example, gave VJs and AV artists some much-needed exposure in 1998, as they started to inject UK broadcast television with an assortment of AV action. They also left their mark on ITV1 with Mixmasters, the eye-popping music series, televised between 2000 and 2005. Transambient and Mixmasters were also widely acclaimed as DVDs, and continue to win the genre new fans.

Addictive TV often create video from scratch, but they have also carved out an incredible reputation as AV samplers and re-mixers. They’ve gone from remixing NASA archives and performing semi-narrative live cinema shows based on 8mm film from the 1950s (The Eye of the Pilot), to producing some painstakingly created but effortlessly watchable cut-up bootleg remixes, including Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, 60’s cult movie The Italian Job, and Get Carter. In 2006 their work impressed Hollywood and they were tracked down to officially remix several movies for Tinseltown. These included Take the Lead starring Antonio Banderas and Snakes on a Plane with Samuel L. Jackson.

Built on heavy beats and tightly synced filmic images, Addictive TV’s high-energy live shows of breaks-driven remixes and mash-ups have taken them around the world, from China to Brazil. They have headlined at major clubs such as Razzmatazz in Barcelona and Paradiso in Amsterdam, and appeared at high-art venues like the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the UK’s National Theatre – not to mention big music festivals, including Glastonbury (UK), Roskilde (Denmark), Lowlands (Holland) and Sziget (Hungary).

Addictive TV often find themselves testing audio/video kit for manufacturers such as Pioneer, Numark, Korg, and Roland. And they use a customised Roland Edirol V4 vision mixer in their current three Pioneer DVJ-1000 based set-up.

Graham: “We simply see visuals as a natural extension to music…”
Tolly: “And having performance tools like the DVJs means everything stays perfectly in sync. Being able to beat-match our own tracks on DVD makes things so much simpler, meaning we can just get on with the business of performing without worrying about umpteen MIDI-triggered laptops crashing or falling out of sync. Which ever way you look at it, DVJs make life a whole lot easier for the AV artist.”

www.myspace.com/addictivetv
www.addictive.tv
www.myspace.com/optronica
www.optronica.org

Words: LL