Strategy is the solo project of Paul Dickow, musician, DJ, producer, and record label operator based in Portland, Oregon. He formed Strategy in 1999 and started releasing in 2003, with albums on labels such as Kranky, 100% Silk and Peak Oil. Dickow is also in the bands Sound People, Smoke and Mirrors, Fontanelle, Nudge, and One Human Minute, and has previously played in the bands Emergency, The Cold War, Two Noises, and the Fracture Line. Together with David Chandler he runs the Community Library label established in 2005. To date Strategy has dabbled in everything from headphone-oriented ambient music to house and dub. Based on a refined studio processes that incorporate multi-tracked live instrumentation, archaic synthesizer equipment, archived recordings of improvisations and band practices, digital sound design, and sound of non-musical origin, Dickow's music is a polyglot solution of genres. Musical quotations, discrete sonic jokes, and skewed musicological impressions are blended into a dream-like, impressionistic musical composite which confounds and compounds music's past, present, and future.
