Jel & Odd Nosdam live improvs @ The Crosby 1/28/11

Born David Madson in Cincinnati, OH, in 1976, producer Odd Nosdam first began experimenting with looping as a teenager, which eventually led to the purchase of a Dr. Sample and eight-track player while he was a student at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Soon he was working with future labelmates Doseone and Why? (with whom he formed cLOUDDEAD), and in 2001 his debut, Plan 9: Meat Your Hypnotist, came out on Mush Records. Odd Nosdam then moved to California to become part of the Anticon team, producing albums for many of its members and releasing his own No More Wig for Ohio in 2003, Burner in 2005, and Level Live Wires two years later. Pretty Swell Explode, an album of remixes and rarities, followed in 2008, containing remixed versions of Boards of Canada, Serena Maneesh, and Black Moth Super Rainbow, as well as some of his own unreleased work. In 2009, Anticon reissued T.I.M.E. Soundtrack, a CD of Odd Nosdam compositions used to score a 2007 Element skateboarding video.
Although the first instrument young Jel (born Jeffrey Logan) played -- much to his chagrin -- was the cornet, as soon as he had saved up enough money he bought his first (and only) drum machine/sampler, the SP 1200, when he was in high school. He began to dedicate most of his time to beat-making, and while at college he worked at the Northwestern University radio station, where he was eventually put in contact with MC Adam Drucker, or Doseone, with whom he connected instantly. Jel dropped out of school in 1996 in order to better focus on music, and two years later Dose's debut, Hemispheres, which featured two tracks produced by Jel, came out on Dose's fledgling Anticon label. The following year the duo released Them as the band Themselves, and both, as part of Deep Puddle Dynamics, along with Alias, Sole, and Slug, began working on the record Taste of Rain...Why Kneel? That album didn't end up being released until 2002, the same year that Jel's solo debut, Greenball, came out, with 10 Seconds following a few months later. In 2003 the Meat and Oil EP was issued, and in 2006, after Jel moved from Mush, the label that had released most of his solo work, to Anticon, Soft Money hit shelves.
Marisa Brown