gwEm

With a career in 8bit music lasting more than 10 years and over two hundred gigs in at least twenty countries, few musicians in the 8bit scene can claim to be more seasoned than gwEm. His travels have taken him as far east as Japan, as far north as Norway, as far south as India, as far west as the United States and he has no plans of hanging up his trademark Flying V guitar anytime soon.

gwEm, known to his mother as Gareth Morris, creates his 8bit music using the maxYMiser software he wrote for the 1980s Atari ST homecomputer and talks excitedly about the artistic freedom the 8bit scene gives him. "8bit music gives me the carte blanche to explore any genre I want, while still remaining under the umbrella of the friendly chip music scene". Certainly his extensive back catalogue of material bears this out, with drum'n'bass, punk, heavy metal, garage, electro, folk, house, grime, dad rock, happy hardcore and dubstep all present and correct.

gwEm's releases can be found on a number of net and physical labels including Astralwerks, 8bitpeoples, micromusic, Shitkatapult and Muller. Collaborations with fellow London based artists, the folk musician Amy Sayer, grime MC Appljuic and (famously) jazz drummer/jungle MC Counter Reset have been more than fruitful.