The Cynic Project

The Cynic Project is the name of a predominantly trance project started in 1999 by Alex Smith. It is known for its uplifting melodies, as well as standard club beats. It rose in popularity with the upbringing of mp3.com in 2000, where it hosted its music, which was downloadable for free. Much of the earlier works were relatively short, considering trance standards. The project originally started as an experiment and developed into the high energy trance project it is today.

Smith is now a student currently living on the University of Minneapolis campus. He studied piano from grade school through high school with private teachers and also played the double bass. [http://trance_site.tripod.com/trance_Djs/id2.html Alex Smith interview] ] Creating electronic music using MIDI and MOD tracking software has been a hobby of his for years, but his music was never recorded or distributed until the summer of 1999.

Smith began to earn significant profits from mp3.com's "payback for playback program." [ [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB96426927476954888.html?mod=googlewsj "Some Musicians Discover Audience, and Cash, Online".] "The Wall Street Journal Online". 15 August, 2000] His dance track "Matrix" (now known as 'grid') hit #1 on the mp3.com music charts in November 1999, and in December he was the top earner on the site, receiving $5,261 in profits, which mp3.com paid based on revenue from on-site advertisting. [ [http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2000/foth000111.htm "Me and My MP3".] "The Motley Fool". 11 January 2000.] Smith went on to built a home studio and started production on a CD. The first CD release, Soundscapes Sampler, was completed early in spring 2000. A Sidewinder single was released in the summer and Soundscapes 2000 was released in the fall of the same year.

Smith's inspiration for writing electronic music started when he heard Robert Miles' Children on vacation in Paris. He soon discovered the trance genre and cites several favorite artists including ATB, Ayla, BT, Ferry Corsten, Chicane, DJ Tiesto, Lange, DJ Sakin, Tomski, Rank 1, Energy 52, Kosmonova, and Solar Stone.

One of his biggest hits, Grid ] [ (Trance Mix), was originally known as Matrix ] [. Mp3.com forced every artist to rename every song that contained a commericially dubious name, even though the song had the name before the first Matrix movie was known to the public.

Discography

References

External links

* [http://www.tcpmusic.com Main site]
* [http://www.tcpmusic.com/e107/news.php Main site Forum and News]
* [http://news.com.com/Some+MP3+artists+scraping+by+without+labels/2100-1023_3-236740.html Some MP3 artists scraping by without labels] CNET.com news.
* [http://www.thecynicproject.com/ The Cynic Project projects blog]
* [http://sonic.tcpmusic.com The Cynic Project Sonic Remixes]
* [http://www.myspace.com/thecynicproject Myspace Page]