Biography
Line is 30-year old Neil Wells.
Born in Brighton, when he was 2 years old the Wells family moved to Munich, Germany and then later to The Hague, Holland, where at age 14 he first picked up a bass guitar and started playing in bands with schoolmates, quickly progressing on from Nirvana covers to writing his own material and recording it on a portastudio as well as sneaking into the music room at school after hours to use Cubase and the 8-track reel-to-reel facilities there.
Moving to Nottingham for university, to study philosophy and quantum physics, after playing in a number of indie bands, which broke up due to techno, death and singers converting to radical islam, he found himself briefly without anyone interesting to play with and so installed some free software on his PC and started experimenting with 8-bit computer game sounds, going to clubs, trying to imitate Missy Elliott and getting increasingly obsessed with electro and techno. After circulating a few minidiscs of experiments round friends involved in the Nottingham DIY music scene, he was offered a show at the now-legendary WhyCan’tWeJustAllGetAlong series of nights, and with only a few days to choose a name, Line (a fairly obvious anagram) was born.
Through the WCWJAGA nights, he met Stephen ‘The Crane’ Hedley and Joe ‘Ikkyo Mahl’ Snow, cofounders of CDR label/electronic collective Tzanda, and appearances on Tzanda’s limited CDR releases followed. At the same time, he reconvened with university friends Fletcher and Ed Earl, as well as with Argentinian ex-cabaret drummer Jorge Lerda, to form Escapologists- initially a hardcore techno duo comprising Fletcher and Earl, the band quickly morphed into the exact opposite- a reflective, piano-led post-rock band, as evidenced on the self-released ‘Starlight’ EP, before, on the departure of pianist Earl, adopting a more straightforward indie-rock sound for 2006’s ‘In Free Motion’ LP, released in Europe on Devilduck records.
A stint as part of Nottingham singer-songwriter Husband (gentle-electric)’s backing band followed, before Wells was asked to join Nottingham slow-core masters Savoy Grand on bass and cornet for the recording and subsequent touring of 2005’s ‘People and What they Want’ LP, as well as contributing a Line remix to the ‘Empty Roads’ CDR EP. Leaving the band due to other commitments, he nonetheless contributes cornet, bass and keyboards to Savoy Grand’s upcoming, as-yet-untitled third album, due for release in 2009. Around the same time, Wells also joined Matador and Glitterhouse Records’ (and long-time Nottingham friends) Seachange as touring multi-instrumental replacement for departing violinist Johanna Cormack, later joining the band full-time for the recording of 2nd LP ‘On Fire, With Love’ , until that band’s demise in 2007. and continues to work with 3 of that band’s members as Dearest.
As Line, a chance online encounter with Russell Parsons of Uncharted Audio led to his 2005 debut 7” proper, ‘A Snowstorm in a Globe/Observe the Mechanics’, “borrowing the sunglasses-at-night menace that bruises Depeche Mode’s darker work before mingling it with the kind of detachment normally associated with Colder” (Boomkat), nonetheless drew plaudits from sources as diverse as Warpmart (“killer”), Textura (“awesome”), Angryape (“brilliant”), and Nag Nag Nag supremo Fil OK.
A slew of compilation appearances followed, as well as live shows with the likes of Fog, Alias, The Bug, DMX Krew, Kid606, Debasser, Cylob, and Panda Bear, topped off this year by an appearance on Uncharted Audio’s “Signals” subscription 7” series alongside artists such as Plaid, Si Begg, King Cannibal and labelmate Cursor Miner.