Biography
Abrahams was born in 1968 in Melbourne and started as a bass guitarist and singer in covers band, Havana Moon in 1990. Abrahams formed the techno group, Future Sound Of Melbourne (FSOM) with drum and bass producer Davide Carbone and acid house DJ Steve Robbins. They released 12" singles on the Shock Records imprint, Candyline Records. Future Sound Of Melbourne also released tracks on Belgium's underground dance-music label, Two Thumbs Records, with the Thomas Heckmann remix of their track "Welcome" featured on the inaugural IF? Records compilation Zeitgeist which was released internationally through Nova Zembla. The Heckmann remix was re-released in 2008 through Sydney-based netlabel, Hypnotic Room. Future Sound Of Melbourne won the ARIA Award for "Best Dance Release" for their Chapter One album in 1996. During this period Abrahams also released several dance singles under various artist names including The Pagan and Bassliners.
In 1995, Abrahams left Future Sound Of Melbourne to become a solo artist, and signed to Carl Cox's label, Worldwide Ultimatum, releasing his techno album The Satyricon to critical acclaim. The album did not chart into the ARIA top 50, although a track from the album, titled "The Joker", appeared on the soundtrack for the film Hackers.
After briefly creating a pop band called The Edison Project and releasing a single, "Don't Be Afraid", Abrahams returned to solo work and signed to Festival Records in Australia in 1997. Film director Baz Luhrmann became interested in Abrahams' work, and asked him to co-produce some tracks for Lurhmann's album Something for Everybody, one of which became the 1998 UK #1 single, "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)". Abrahams' chart success continued in the 1999 with the Australian platinum selling single "Addicted to Bass" where he teamed with singer Amiel Daemion, which peaked at #15 on the ARIA singles chart. The associated album Sweet Distorted Holiday, which peaked in the top 50 on the ARIA albums chart, was released in 1999. The second single, "Headroom", another collaboration with Daemion, peaked outside the ARIA Top 100, while "Thrillseeker", the third single was released as a promotional single in Australia. Abrahams also had top 50 chart success in New Zealand with "Addicted To Bass", "Thrillseeker" and Sweet Distorted Holiday. Abrahams set the record for number of ARIA nominations for an artist on an independent label that year, getting six nods, for record of the year, best male artist, best independent release, best dance artist album, best video, and best engineer. He ended up winning two ARIAs, for Best Dance Album and Best Independent Release. In 2001, Abrahams added to his producer credits by producing the platinum selling single "Lovesong" and the gold selling album Audio Out for Daemion.
Read more about this topic: Josh "Puretone" Abrahams
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