bq Mackintosh got his start in electronic music back when patch cords were made of shielded copper, not animated pixels. After falling prey to the Plank-inspired proto-techno of Ultravox, Visage, and Gary Numan, he cut his teeth on a wall-sized modular synth in the electronic music labs of Fairlight expert Thomas McKenney.
After moving to Germany in 1990, bq (short for Blaque, rhymes with "opaque") discovered the nascent underground techno scene saturated with deep dense fog, thudding 909 kicks, and squelchy distorted sawtooth and square waves. While the music of Richie Hawtin, Underworld, Speedy J, Röyksopp, Eat Static, and Trentemøller drew him ever deeper in, his developing career as an interaction designer ultimately made him set aside music composition.
Later chancing upon the patch cord chaos of Propellerheads' Reason, and fueled with the neo-Techno of Kompakt and Ghostly International labels, bq started studio work again. His many years of formal study and careful listening, combined with the right tools, has culminated with his self-released debut EP, "The Tranquility Crucible," available in October 2010.
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