Glasgow's Ruaridh Law is a busy man. Over ten years, from his formative years as one third of electronica heroes The Marcia Blaine School For Girls, through further experimental work as The Village Orchestra, on to dancefloor-focused releases as the foreshortened TVO, even encompassing drone work as one half of both Accrual and Rose & Sandy, his prolific release schedule is only matched by the grandeur of his ambition, and he's as comfortable live-soundtracking obscure Japanese surrealist cop shows as he is improvising live performance or holding it down in the club. Not content to wow the likes of Mary Anne Hobbes, FACT magazine and The Wire with his productions, Law was until recently a resident DJ at the all-conquering Numbers nights, where, together with fellow traveller Production Unit, he blazed a trail of eclecticism that led the fledgling electro club into the multi-headed genre beast that is so well known today. His DJ mixes run the gamut from beatless soundscapes to clattering bedlam, as heard on a multitude of podcasts and radio shows. Taking influence from a raft of forebears, the Law sound encompasses deconstructed techno, dark ambience, rough electronic beats and an ambivalent sense of playfulness, all the while retaining an identity rooted in uneasy melody and widescreen values. Call it machine music with a human face. 2010 sees the launch of Broken20, a label curated by Ruaridh with assistance from Production Unit and Erstlaub. As with his own music, Broken20 seeks to wilfully ignore BPM, definition and category; instead, there will be a unifying theme: imperfection, error and decay expressed through sound.
