When I got to hear work-in-progress from this project, right off BT’s hard drive, I was so impressed that in our Dec. ’05 issue, I said it could well be the first major electronic work of the new millennium. It is. In fact, it’s no exaggeration that this work puts BT in the same league as Eno, John Cage, or even Stravinsky. The music’s appeal isn’t just cerebral, though: It blends raw emotion with high-concept so gracefully that depth and accessibility, too often at odds in any art form, become allies. Such BT signatures as complex beats and quantum-precise stutter edits show up, but in a much larger picture that’s half symphony for electrons and half soundtrack without a film. Actually, seven conceptual, computer-animated films — one for each track — are on the included DVD, whose surround mix is the definitive Universe, though the two-disc set also includes a stereo CD. I won’t tell you what it sounds like. That’s impossible. Just go get it, and prepare to have your mind blown.—Stephen Fortner (Digital Sound, http://www.thisbinaryuniverse.com)

Voted in the top 5 of “America’s Best DJs” by the readers of DJ Times, BT’s music – as found on his albums, IMA, ESCM, Movement In Still Life and Emotional Technology – is considered to be classic by today’s standards. For his latest effort, the stirring surround-sound album and DVD, This Binary Universe (DTS), BT flew DJ Times writer Emily Tan from New York to his home in the Hollywood Hills for a private screening in his home theater.

Seven short animated, often abstract films, mated with electronic music in surround

The artist known as BT (Brian Transeau) was initially known for his pioneering work in trance music and now creates film scores and does arranging and production for pop albums, all with an emphasis on cutting-edge sonic landscapes. He did the score for the film Monster, as well as The Fast and the Furious and Under Suspicion, and for the TV series Tommy Lee Goes to College.

Initially known as the pioneer of trance music, BT has evolved into one of the most visionary artists and producers for a multitude of musical styles. Whether composing intricate scores with 80-piece orchestras for blockbuster films and the Oscar-winning Monster, writing and producing for Sting, David Bowie, remixing evocative epics for Madonna or designing and creating cutting edge proprietary software tools from scratch to make it happen.

The Producers & Engineers Wing of The Recording Academy designated JBL Professional an official audio partner in the “Speakers and Audio Home Theater Systems” category. The partnership coincides with JBL’s 60th anniversary. As part of this joint effort, regional chapters of The Recording Academy are presenting a series of educational events. JBL is also hosting demonstrations of new loudspeaker technologies.

Emily Lazar of The Lodge in New York City (http://www.thelodge.com) has had albums from Morrissey, Depeche Mode, BT, Garbage and David Bowie, among many others, pass through her mastering suite. As the final stop in the processing chain, Lazar emphasizes that mastering is a crucial stage for the vocals.

He’s known around the world the “Father of Trance,” but Brian Transeau (BT) is no one-trick pony. Whether he’s mixing electronics with orchestral scores (for films such as /The Fast and the Furious /and/ Stealth/), collaborating with mega-stars like Sting, or creating epic remixes for Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos, Madonna, or Seal, BT consistently balances creative and memorable songwriting, sonic innovation, and the latest technology for a cutting-edge, yet organic sound.

BT creates nearly all his work at his home studio, Binary Acoustics, on a setup that’s “very modest and clean, compared to what I’ve used in the past,” he says. The nerve center is an Apple dual G5 running Logic Pro 7, the 30-inch Cinema display we all wish we had, and lots of MOTU interfaces. “When I hear ‘hard’ followed by ‘ware,’” he says, “MOTU is what I think of. My Traveler has never crashed at a gig, and I’ve crashed a ton of interfaces.” His main controller is an M-Audio Radium. “People are surprised I use an unweighted keyboard,” he says. “But it feels like all those vintage synths I spent summers mowing lawns to afford.”

Electronica’s visionary takes off in a new direction.

“Basically, my house is a hard drive,” laughs Brian Transeau. Though BT’s referring to the more than eight terabytes of computer storage at his home studio, the place actually does look like a hard drive, its sparse cubic forms and corrugated metal walls boldly rebelling against the Spanish-tile status quo of residential hills near L.A.’s Griffith Park. “It was designed by Frank Gehry [the architect behind Disney Hall and Seattle’s Experience Music Project building], and I think even the realtor didn’t know that when I first made an offer.”