Deadbeat

by Jason Birchmeier
Though based in Montreal, Deadbeat and his ultra-textured ambient dub soundscapes made their way around the world, finding large audiences in Europe as well as in North America. Deadbeat producer Scott Monteith is a member of the same fertile Montreal scene that includes such luminaries as Akufen (Marc Leclair) and Algorithm (Jeff Milligan). Like his peers, he gained international acclaim in the early 2000s once the French-Canadian city became a hot spot for laptop techno (see the Monteal Smoked Meat compilation), thanks partly to the world-reknown Mutek festival as well as a wealth of Montreal-based record labels. Monteith debuted as Deadbeat in July 2000 with the Cesium Beam 12" for Hautec Records and has since recorded for such labels as Revolver, Intr_Version, Background, Force Inc, Oral, Scape, Cynosure, and Clitekture. In addition, he has collaborated with Steve Beaupre as Crack Haus and also with Robert Henke (Monolake) as Atlantic Waves.
Monteith moved to Montreal in 1995 and quickly became enthralled by the city's underground community of digital musicians and artists, eventually co-founding the multi-media collective Covert Ops. He began recording music as Deadbeat in early 1998 and released his first 12" in 2000. A year later fellow Montreal producer Mitchell Akiyama released the debut Deadbeat full-length, Primordia (2001), on his Intr_Version label, and another year later Stefan Betke (Pole) released the follow-up, Wild Life aries (2002), on his Scape label. During the intermittent time, numerous other labels released Monteith's recordings as Deadbeat; most notably, Force Inc showcased the producer's work -- both as Deadbeat and as half of Crack Haus -- on its scene-encapsulating Montreal Smoked Meat (2002) collection. In addition to his recordings, Monteith has performed live at the Mutek festival (Montreal, May 2000), the Transmediale festival (Berlin, February 2002), and the Creative Time festival (New York, October 2002), as well as elsewhere. By day he works for the Montreal-based audio software company Applied Acoustics Systems.