SuperGiant site
12" Releases
"Little Soul": 1999 Recon Records/S16 Music (UK)
"Way I Want": 1999 Recon Records/S16 Music (UK)
"I Need Feel": 1999 Recon Records/S16 Music (UK)
Album Releases
"Machine-Turned Blues": 1999+2000 Recon Records/Robbins BMG (USA), Polystar Records (Japan)
Published by Rough Trade Publishing
"Glamtronica": 2001+2 Polystar Records(Japan)
Published by Rough TradePublishing
"Fistful of Digits" e.p: 2004 Atomic Music Europa c+p H2SO4 2004
"Little Soul": 2008 "Sweet Fifteen" Rough Trade Publishing .
Published by Rough Trade Publishing
Personnel
Christopher Heritage: drums – keyboards
James Butler: guitar – vocals
Darren Till: drums – keyboards
David Mitchell: programming – guitar – keyboards – engineering
Graham Cupples: keyboards
Andrew Philips: programming – keyboards – vocals – engineering
The H2SO4 Story
Whilst working on their album "Deco", MORTAL received a visit from SULPHUR (Rhythm King) with a request to remix a couple of songs. The results delighted both bands and suggested an intriguing collaboration "by deconstructing the edgy guitar and vocal tracks and distilling the melodic qualities of Sulpher's songs into elegant dance-driven structures, an entirely new band might be formed" (G. Cupples, interview, Mix Magazine). This was reflected early on in the choice of the name: H2SO4 (the acidic version of sulphur).
"Over You" and "Cacherelle" (3 Miles High) were later added to appear on the H2SO4 release "Machine Turned Blues", but for now they were merely remixes.
Two months later, Sulphur (Chris Heritage, James Butler and manager Cliff Sargent) approached Code/Mortal with a new project: to build a recording studio, midi-suite and rehearsal space where both bands might write a whole album of material.
S16 Studios was completed in 1999 after several months of hard work – and the collaboration began in earnest with further remixes ("Way I Want", "Mute", "I Need Feel") from the Sulpher splits, and, in time with direct 'jamming' in the studio to produce massive club anthems Little Soul, Come On and the urban break-beat lament "Imitation Leather Jacket".
It was a feverishly productive period resulting in the writing, production and release of their own label (Recon Records) of 3 white labels (all of which received plaudits from the Record Industry and Radio 1 DJ's Peter Tong, John Digweed, John Peel and the messianic fervor of FM's Bob Geldof for the single "Imitation Leather Jacket"), 2 H2SO4 albums, 2 Lobster albums and an off the wall album by Le Mans.
"Imitation Leather Jacket" was played on a daily basis for 2 years by X FM and is still played to this day – and by dint of such underground rotation, Imitation Leather Jacket reached 100 in the charts despite Radio 1 daytime's refusal to play it.
Licenses followed in USA, Japan and publishing (Rough Trade Publishing).
H2SO4 spent a lot of time in their S16 compound emerging only to play showcase gigs e.g. Glastonbury Festival, Medway Festival, The Water Rats London, Chicago + Toronto BMG Conference.
In 2000-1 they released "Glamtronica" in Japan – an album largely of groove-driven rock songs pre-dating the sound of Goldfrappe and Body Rockers, once more showing their predilictions for hardcore electronics lubricated by lashes of great beauty and humour.
S16 Studios
Other products from S16 Studios:
Defcon Records:
Nattyy + Dwella
The Corridor
Le Mans
The Demise of S16 Studios
In January 2001, a sudden freeze caused water pipes to burst inside S16; the subsequent flood meant evacuation of all equipment and this was then stored at various locations. The band were already in the throws of difficulties due to court cases in the U.S.following their U.S. and Canada tours
and this was later compounded by another pending case surrounding the use of their tracks on Sopranos.
H2SO4 have been quiet ever since..There have been occasional releases e.g. the rare "Fistful of Digits" e.p but in the years following,H2SO4 have gone to ground or worked on alternative projects-
this site
tries to keep up with them:
We have the superGiant albums, the Les Mans experiments, both Code albums, Lobster albums and the gorgeous freedoms of The Zzips albums, "Twenty Years Late Again" and the upcoming "Light from this End" (ironically turning on its head the h2so4 ethos of acoustic-electronic:: the ZZips take electronic music e.g. SuperGiant's "Sister Robot" and present it acoustically)
H2SO4's Music has featured on "Six Feet Under" , World Cup themes on Sky Sport and ITV , MTV Music Awards, the HBO series "The Sopranos" as well as the underground US movie "Hellbent".In 2008 their track "Come On" was used as the soundtrack to a Mitsubishi advert on American T.V.
