A wildly eclectic producer who released four LPs during 1993-94 but then all but retired his solo work for a place in the trip-hop duo Outcast, Beaumont Hannant began DJing in 1986 after attending several hip-hop mixing competitions. During the late '80s he was heavily into electro, techno and hip-hop as well as indie-rock (he even managed fellow natives of York Shed Seven for awhile). Hannant began working on production in 1993 with the EP Tastes and Textures, Vol. 1 for GPR Records. One track, "Awakening the Soul," appeared on the Positiva Ambient Collection, and Hannant released his debut album, Basic Data Manipulation (Tastes and Textures, Vol. 2) that same year. In 1994, Hannant recorded an unbelievable three full-lengths (Texturology, Bitter Sweet, Sculptured) for GPR, each possessing a breath-taking variety of styles. By 1995, however, Hannant had begun to diversify his talents, providing remixes for Autechre, Björk and Ned's Atomic Dustbin, producing indie-folkie Lida Husik and beginning the group Outcast with his engineer Richard Brown. The duo signed to One Little Indian and released their debut album Out of Tune in 1996. Hannant appeared to have returned to his solo guise as well at the end of the year with the release of a GPR double-pack EP titled Notions of Tonality. ~ John Bush