Dawn of the Replicants are a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

 quintet from Galashiels

Galashiels

Galashiels is a burgh in the Scottish Borders, on the Gala Water river. The name is often shortened to "Gala" .Galashiels is a major commercial centre for the Scottish Borders...

, described by Allmusic as "one of the most inventive groups in the United Kingdom. Impossible to categorize". Four of the 1997 line-up (Pringle, Vickers, Simian and Small) had previously worked together on the short-lived Scottish music

Music journalism

Music journalism is criticism and reportage about music. It began in the eighteenth century as comment on what is now thought of as 'classical music'. This aspect of music journalism, today often referred to as music criticism , comprises the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of...

 magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

, Sun Zoom Spark

Sun Zoom Spark

Sun Zoom Spark was a mid-1990s British music magazine. It took its name from a track on Captain Beefheart's LP, Clear Spot and covered alternative rock and britpop music. Its editorial staff was based in Galashiels, Scotland.- History :...

.

Band members

• Donald Kyle: Bass & guitar (1997 to 2001)
• Grant Pringle: Drums, guitar, keyboards & vocals (1997 to 2001)
• Roger Simian: Guitar, keyboards & vocals (1996 to present)
• Mike Small: Guitar, keyboards & vocals (1997 to present)
• Paul Vickers: Lead Vocals, keyboards & gadgetry (1996 to present)
• Dave Coyle: Bass, guitar & vocals (2002 to present)
• David Little: Drums, vocals & engineer (2002 to present)

Biography

Initially a duo (Vickers and Simian), the band

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 released a mail-order EP

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

, entitled So Far So Spitfire in December 1996. John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

 and Mark Radcliffe

Mark Radcliffe

Mark Radcliffe is an English broadcaster who has worked in various roles for the BBC since the 1980s and remains one of Britain's most recognised DJs. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music, where he hosts an afternoon show five times a week alongside Stuart Maconie, called...

, BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

 DJs

Disc jockey

A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...

 gave the EP substantial airplay. The band was expanded to a quintet and a second self-released single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 followed in the summer of 1997. They signed for eastwest

East West Records

East West Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group, and operates under WMG's Independent Label Group.-History:...

, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. records

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

. Before the close of the year, a few more EPs followed, accolades from the NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

, and The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

newspaper declared them the 'best new band of 1997'.

The 1998 single "Candlefire", taken from the debut album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 reached number 52 in the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

. The follow-up, "Hogwash Farm", peaked at number 65. That summer the band played both the Glastonbury

Glastonbury Festival

The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...

 and Reading Festival

Reading and Leeds Festivals

The Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend, sharing the same bill. The Reading Festival is held at Little John's Farm...

s.

Before his death, John Peel aired five sessions, four as Dawn of the Replicants plus a one-off session Vickers and Simian recorded as side project, Pluto Monkey. The band's single "Science Fiction Freak", taken from the second Replicants' album, made John Peel's 'Festive 50' in 1999. The album sold less well than its predecessor and Warner Bros. dropped the band.

In 2000, Vickers and Simian released an album and two singles through Shifty Disco of electronica

Electronica

Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...

, under the name Pluto Monkey.

After a break the band returned with a third album and a live tour in 2002. John Aizlewood wrote in Q

Q (magazine)

Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...

, “being dumped by their major label in 1999 should have finished Dawn of the Replicants. Instead they took their always cheery, slightly off-kilter pop to indieworld and carried on as if nothing (save a drastic budget reduction) had happened”.

In 2005 the band played at the South by Southwest

South by Southwest

South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...

 Festival in Austin

Austin, Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. In recent years they have also recorded sessions for Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1 and Marc Riley on BBC 6 Music

BBC 6 Music

BBC 6 Music is one of the BBC's digital radio stations, was launched on 11 March 2002 and originally codenamed Network Y. It was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years....

. While on tour in the UK during early 2006, the band took part in the Abbey Road Sessions for American satellite radio

Satellite radio

Satellite radio is an analogue or digital radio signal that is relayed through one or more satellites and thus can be received in a much wider geographical area than terrestrial FM radio stations...

 station U-Pop

U-Pop

U-Pop was a satellite radio channel programmed by Washington, DC based 1worldspace. U-Pop could originally be heard globally on WorldSpace's Afristar and Asiastar satellites. The channel features hit music from around the globe including hits from Europe, Japan, Africa, America and Latin America...

 and enjoyed video plays on MTV2

MTV2

MTV2 is a cable network that is widely available in the United States on digital cable and satellite television, and is progressively being added to analogue cable lineups across the nation...

, whilst Mojo

Mojo (magazine)

MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...

, NME, Uncut

UNCUT (magazine)

Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...

, and Q all carried reviews of their fifth studio

Recording studio

A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...

 album, Fangs.

In 2006 ten years was celebrated with a twenty two track singles collection, the first 1,000 copies of which included a free DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

, featuring live footage, videos and interviews. New tracks were recorded in early 2007 for the sixth studio album. Members of Dawn of the Replicants can currently be found working on projects including Paul Vickers and The Leg, The Stark Palace, The Stone Ghost Collective, Mike and Michi, COW and The Border Boogie Band.

Albums

• One Head, Two Arms, Two Legs (eastwest
  East West Records
  East West Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group, and operates under WMG's Independent Label Group.-History:...
  
  , 1998)
• Wrong Town, Wrong Planet, Three Hours Late (eastwest
  East West Records
  East West Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group, and operates under WMG's Independent Label Group.-History:...
  
  , 1999)
• Touching The Propeller (Flying Sparks, 2002)
• The Extra Room (Hungry Dog, 2004)
• Fangs (SL Records, 2006)
• Bust The Trunk: The Singles (Compilation on SL Records, 2006)