Michael is a 29 year old Canadian, born in Crystal City, Manitoba, Canada. He speaks both English and French fluently.
Michael has been composing music ever since he was about 10 years old, when his parents bought him a simple synthesizer. He quickly started to learn by ear both TV show tunes and video game music.
At the age of 14, he took a guitar class at school and was immediately hooked. Thanks to being a paperboy throughout his youth, he eventually bought himself an electric guitar, an electric bass, a 4-track recorder, a used Roland sequencer, and a better synthesizer. For much of his teenage years, he composed songs on his own. He tried playing with others, but he always found that he preferred to have total control over his music. He was a producer, not a musician.
His songs were catchy, but they lacked vocals. Michael was not a singer. Not at all.
In his early 20's he fell in love with techno and acid house. He put his guitar and bass aside and started to produce techno with his sequencer and synthesizer.
About 5 years ago he discovered Propellerhead's Reason. He was hooked.
Rachel is a 26 year old Canadian, born in Warsaw, Poland. She speaks both English and Polish fluently.
As Michael refined his skills in Propellerhead's Reason, his songs became more and more "pop". He needed a vocalist. He always dreamed of having a female voice in his songs, so he asked his partner Rachel to try singing.
He realized she had a great voice!
Michael typically records her voice into samples, which he uses in Reason 4. Her voice is usually passed trough a vocoder. Of course the result has a certain robotic feel to it, but this is electronic music after all.
Even though Atomic Anna is 90% Michael, he believes that a band's singer outshines anyone in any band.
Some have commented that our music is eclectic, that it is mix of many genres. Absolutely! Throughout our producer's life, he has listened to and composed many genres: metal, punk, rock, ska, techno, acid, industrial and synthpop. Michael has at some point in his life listened extensively to the following: Kraftwerk, Plasticman, Aphex Twin, Acid voice, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, Ladytron, Portishead, Tori Amos, Cat Stevens, Led Zeppelin, Primus, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Frank Zappa, Smashing Pumpkins, Metallica, Marylin Manson, Nirvana, Offspring, NOFX, Tea Party...
Now, he mostly listens to techno, acid and himself J
