Sapphirecut

Sapphirecut is the alias of singer Megan Taylor, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The name was used originally for the progressive trance sound she formed with keyboardists Dave Shaffer and Jake Knights.

In December 2001, Taylor brought dubplates of the group's track "Free Your Mind" to the Winter Music Conference in Miami and handed them out to all of the DJs she admired. She picked up the phone months later, and it was superstar DJ Danny Tenaglia looking to license the track for his Back to Basics collection. The track was an underground dance classic being played by Tiesto, Paul Oakenfold, Ferry Corsten globally in concerts and on club floors around the world. The Free Your Mind track was signed by Rob DiStefano of Twisted Records(America) and the "Free Your Mind" single which was released in 2003 quickly climbed the dance charts where it was a top 10 dance track in Billboard magazine. Sapphirecut made the news when Taylor contacted the popular and electronica oriented file-sharing network, Soulseek, in an effort to stop the group's music from being shared amongst users. She was concerned that the label she signed the track to would not get any revenue and was concerned for fellow artists. When Soulseek's server host Verio became aware of the situation, they dropped the network and it was unavailable for weeks. Sapphirecut's actions soon became a hot topic on forums across the Internet.

Taylor has told interviewers that she choose the Sapphirecut name when she realized that a sapphire needle is used to create a dub plate at a friends new dub plate press Scrunch Recordings in 2001. She found this out when she was helping physically balance his new dub plate press and learned these were used as the original template of vinyls. She decided to be released as a sound globally carried by these type of cuts and named the original sounds that were created in her studio in Philadelphia, Sapphirecut. Sapphirecut has produced many original and remixed releases. She has albums and singles released on various labels including her own label OSP. Sapphirecut is digitally released by Ingrooves and Isolation network. Her album is a mixture of electronic songs written and mixed by Sapphirecut and played by various co artists.

Sapphirecut was one of the pioneers opening the airwaves in the Northeast US, California and Maui to club and electronic music with her 2-hour weekly FM/AM/Internet radio program where electronic and dance music played openly from around the globe and DJ/Producers and Electronic Musicians were featured weekly with interviews with fresh shows running for 5 years until 2012. Sapphirecut created the show in her home studio where she used international calls or her recording booth when artists were in town to create the interview content. She mixed the weekly 2 hour show with fresh announced music and served as a talk host, distributing the show for no compensation as a global community service. Reruns have played at various stations since that time. She has had various artists like Markus Schulz, Dfuse, Infusion, David Guetta, etc. as featured artists and created separate heading for each station the show ran was on.

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