LFO (British band)

LFO
Mark Bell (LFO) on stage in Arma 17, Moscow, on 30 March 2013.
Background information
Origin	Leeds, England, United Kingdom
Genres	Electronica, techno, IDM, acid house, industrial dance
Years active	1988–1996 2003–2014
Labels	Tommy Boy/Warner Bros. (U.S.) Warp
Website	LFO site at Warp Records
Past members	Gez Varley (1988–1996) Mark Bell (1988–2014)

LFO were a British electronic music act on the Warp Records label. LFO were pioneers of the bass-heavy techno, IDM, and acid house music of the late 1980s to mid-1990s. Originally, the group was composed of Gez Varley (born 1971) and Mark Bell. (1971–2014) After Varley left in 1996, LFO was Bell alone. Bell died in October 2014.

The group's name is derived from the abbreviation for the term low-frequency oscillator, a synthesizer function widely used in electronic music.

Varley and Bell met while studying at Leeds and gave their first track, the eponymous "LFO", to Nightmares on Wax. The popularity of the demo in clubs led to the track being released by the Sheffield-based Warp Records in 1990, and it was a Top 20 hit in the U.K., reaching number 12 in the singles charts in July.

Their follow-up single, "We Are Back", was released in the summer of 1991.

DJ Martin (Martin Williams) is credited as a cowriter and coproducer of the track "LFO" but was not a member of the group. Mark Bell explains:

"We gave a tape of our recordings to DJ Martin who helped loads with arranging our tracks so it'd work on the dancefloor. We'd just been messing around with drum machines since we were like thirteen, tapping away at them like they were arcade games, making tapes to play our mates at school. Anyway, DJ Martin would play our cassettes in his sets and people would go mental - in a good way - cos they were totally raw."

Later signed to Tommy Boy Records in the U.S., the duo remixed Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock", as well as songs from Björk, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, Laurent Garnier, and The Sabres of Paradise.