Large Number

Multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Ann Shenton has always been one of the most colorful personalities involved in electronica. Along with providing vocals, synths, and theremin playing to the mighty <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Add N to (X)</a>, her off-stage antics only add to her volatile appeal. Along with making her own wine and collecting capes, <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Shenton</a>'s escapades include running off to Idaho with one of <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Add N to (X)</a>'s roadies and living there for a time; working at a burger joint and making friends with the local biker gangs; recording in a haunted castle in Wales; and, while wheelchair-bound as a result of a drunken skiing accident, delivering a guitar to <a href="spotify:artist:55bGuHb50r5c0PeqqMeNBV">Jimmy Page</a> from Idaho to London. After <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Add N to (X)</a>'s fallout, which included <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Shenton</a>'s no-show on the band's final U.S. tour, <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Shenton</a> took awhile to regroup and form her new project, Large Number (which was also the name of one of her songs on the group's last album, Loud Like Nature). Joined by former <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Add N to (X)</a> drummer Rob Allum, guitarist David Guez, banjo player Robert Weston, percussionist Jackie Freeworld, and multi-instrumentalist/programmer Pierre Duplan, she set out to make analog synth-driven music that was as different from her former group's work as possible. <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Shenton</a> dumped the strictly electronic sound of <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Add N to (X)</a> for a more organic style that included elements of prog and bluegrass (which she heard plenty of in Idaho), and had Large Number record on a farm on an abandoned military test site that still had live explosives buried in the ground. The results, Spray on Sound, were released in the U.K. in 2003 and arrived in the U.S. the following year, and The Now Defunct Delaware single followed later in 2004. That year, <a href="spotify:artist:3pcItz4w7h7fpTDgnTYIUn">Shenton</a> began working on a project called The Electronic Bible, which included a triple A-side single that featured a new Large Number track as well as pieces by Kings Have Long Arms and Pat Riot; in 2005, the full-length Electronic Bible compilation arrived. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi