| Jonathan Sharp | |
| Background: | musician |
| Origin: | Cumbria, England |
| Years Active: | 1990-present |
| Website: | https://sonic-boom.com/mission-control/ |
Jonathan Sharp is an electronic body music / industrial musician and professional sound designer from Cumbria, England, who has released music under the names New Mind, Bio-Tek, The Heartwood Institute, and others. He was also a member of the bands Cyber-Tec Project, Hexedene, and Hyperdex-1-Sect.
As a child Jonathan was a classically-trained musician, having played piano and violin.[1] As a teenager taught himself to play guitar[2] and his interests began drifting from classical music towards experimental guitar oriented music in the vein of Swans, as well as early industrial and electronic music including Neu! and Helden.[3] Drawing on a fascination with the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Jonathan eventually acquired a Roland synthesizer in order to make sounds of his own.
New Mind was formed as a solo project of Jonathan Sharp in 1990. Prior to creating New Mind, Jonathan played guitar and sampler in an experimental band where he thought of electronic and industrial musics as being distinct. It was when Jonathan took a suggestion to listen to Skinny Puppy that he had a revelation that led to the creation of New Mind.
The first New Mind demo, Bacteriophage, was recorded on 4-track in 1991. This was followed by the EP Body Politic which was released by the Sadisque,[4] an imprint of the UK-based Vinyl Solution label. New Mind was initially offered an expanded record deal with Sadisque but the deal fell through. Jonathan contributed tracks to several compilations during the following year including releases by Sentrax Records, Dossier, and The Empty Quarter before being signed to Machinery Records in 1993.[5]
The first New Mind album, Fractured, was released by Machinery Records in 1993. This was the only release on Machinery as the label did not find the initial material for the second album, Zero To The Bone, to their liking. Zero To The Bone was eventually released by Fifth Colvmn Records in 1995.[6] While Fractured displayed the obvious influence of Skinny Puppy with a more straightforward EBM and electro style, Zero explored a wider variety of electronic music styles infused with guest female vocalists.[7]
After setbacks with both Fifth Colvmn and Cyber-Tec, Jonathan sent initial demos of tracks from Forge to Stefan Herwig at Off Beat. This led to a multi-album deal with Off Beat.
See main article: Cyber-Tec Project. In 1995, Jonathan became a founding member of Cyber-Tec Project along with Jean-Luc De Meyer and Ged Denton. Jonathan was unexpectedly replaced in the band by Marc Heal after the release of the band's first album.
Jonathan considered New Mind to be his main musical project and did not wish to constrain his musical output under that name to any particular genre or style. His affinity for "European" EBM, however, led him to develop a second solo project, Bio-Tek, as an outlet for that particular style. While he was releasing music as New Mind on Off Beat, Jonathan secured a deal with seminal German record label, Zoth Ommog, to release music as Bio-Tek.
The relationship with Zoth Ommog via Bio-Tek led to a collaboration between Jonathan and André Schmechta of X Marks the Pedwalk that became Hyperdex-1-Sect. Their album Metachrome was released by Synthetic Symphony in 1997 and featured tracks that Jonathan had originally written for Cyber-Tec Project, reconstructed by André and reformatted with female vocals.
See main article: Hexedene. In 1997, Jonathan formed Hexedene with Katie Helsby and Ian Palmer. The band received praise for layering a techno sound with gothic, industrial and pop music leanings.[8]
During the 1990s, Jonathan produced many remixes as New Mind for bands such as Aïboforcen, Birmingham 6, Scar Tissue, Inertia, Aghast View, and Attrition. He also recorded many one-off compilation tracks under various names, including: Datura, Gunhed, Lashtal, Nova, Psionic, Tyrophex 14, Vent, and Zodiac.
Beginning in 2015, Jonathan began releasing 1970s-inspired, "haunting" music under the name The Heartwood Institute. As Heartwood, Jonathan explores occult and magical themes in a more downtempo-oriented music format. Jonathan began performing live at themed events as Heartwood beginning in 2017.[9]
By the year 2000, Jonathan discovered library music and began making recordings for hire under his own name on behalf of many publishers including his own company, Summer Witch Music.[10] Over the next several years Jonathan temporarily ceased his commercial music production in deference to his new career.
Contemporary with his work as The Heartwood Institute, Jonathan embarked on recordings under his own name of "elegaic piano-led pieces" with an autobiographical theme inspired by photographs taken during his childhood.[11] His release Divided Time focuses his childhood years of 1970—1977 when he would split his time between his parents' houses in London and Cumbria.[12]
In 2022, Sharp produced a pair of releases inspired by classic 1970s era horror soundtracks under the name "Henning Zinoviev & Floating Candles."[13]