Land of the Loops

Land of the Loops is the recording and performance name of Boston, Massachusetts-area musician Alan Sutherland. From the early 1990s till present, Land of the Loops has been creating sample- and loop-heavy indierock-influenced electronica. With the difficulty of touring for a mostly one-man electronic music outfit, Land of the Loops has instead concentrated on album releases and licensed use of songs to gain exposure. Lately, Land of the Loops has been scoring modern dance performances for Lorraine Chapman The Company.

During his years studying art the University of Colorado in Boulder and meeting like-minded musicians (Steven, Explosion Robinson, Buckminster Fuzeboard) Alan developed an interest in low-fi home cassette recording. Central to this scene of bedroom musicians was fellow art student Steven Nereo, who founded the Slabco label, which would later release the first recordings of the Land of the Loops. Graduating in 1991, Alan's recording career got underway due to a present from his parents, an Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus sampler, which he picked out himself with help of Mark Brooks of influential Boulder band the Warlock Pinchers.

Settling in Denver, Colorado, and using his Capitol Hill apartment as a studio, Alan recorded several loop and sample driven cassette-only releases for Slabco, which at this point was operating out of Seattle, Washington. After Alan relocated to Brooklyn, New York, where he began a master's degree program in art education at the Pratt Institute, employees at Seattle's Up Records heard his second Land of the Loops cassette release, "Percival," leading to a recording deal with them. Being produced by Tucker Martine, many of the songs on "Percival" were reworked and for the first Up Records CD release, "Bundle of Joy" in 1996. Among the guest musicians on the album, two songs have vocals by Beat Happening's Heather Lewis. The CD had some success on college radio with the standout track and advance single, "Multi-family Garage Sale," being licensed by Miller Genuine Draft for a beer commercial.

After two EPs, "Refried Treats" (1997) and "Hurry Up and Wait" (1999), Land of the Loops released its second full-length album "Puttering About a Small Land" in 2000. The music for this album was mostly recorded at his mother's Lincoln, Massachusetts home, where he then lived while finishing up his master's degree thesis on a personally relevant subject, dyslexia and art. Besides the vocals of Heather Lewis, "Puttering About a Small Land" also features the Japanese singer Takako Minekawa. Without an obvious single, this release was not as commercially successful as "Bundle of Joy".

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