Dave Dri

An Australian producer and musician that founded the live electronic music act Segue, and previously a member of the live breaks act Superfluid at the time of the band's debut and subsequent tours. The experience was educational and indicative of the era, with Superfluid signing to the Creative Vibes label at the peak of the label's powers, ensuring a steady stream of radio play and high demand for both club and rave shows. The latter pulling the band further from the plunderphonic sounds of the initial album, a product of a small and collaborative community of sample-heavy producers including The Avalanches and label mates PNAU and Gotye. Superfluid would ultimately move into the harder Breaks and Nuskool Breaks sounds, switching Ryan on to the opportunity to branch out and pursue the more Acid House era sounds of an 80's child, the common influences of childhood Kraftwerk to teenage Chemical Brothers. Outside of Segue's experiences as a live electronic act, David Ryan was a guest keyboard and touring member of the bands D-KO, Silent Shadow, and Statler & Waldorf, as well as occasional solo tours, such as an unexpected invitation to perform at Exit Fest in Serbia in 2004. An unmissable opportunity that arose as a result of sampling Slavic folk songs in one of Superfluid's releases on the Creative Vibes label. The experience in the region not so long after the Balkan wars, immersed into communities connected to his Australian friends who had left as refugees from the conflict, proved immensely moving, and resulted in a highly creative period upon return. Off the stage, Ryan studied sound design and synthesis, and increasingly focused on the technology side of the industry, joining open source company Red Hat, before spinning out a publishing technology project as a tech founder and settling into San Francisco. Now back in Australia after the pandemic reset, Ryan has established a fund to begin collecting and archiving the stories and gear from Australia's early electronic music community, and is supportive of the next generation of makers and culture creators coming through Australia's creative community.