Begun in 1992 as part of a San Francisco warehouse collective including Spacetime Continuum and Scott Hardkiss, Subtropic is a one-man production team headed by Jake Smith. Later based in another seaside resort -- Brighton, England -- Smith initially worked in San Francisco mostly as a DJ, playing shows at the same warehouse space he called home. An ongoing relationship with Spacetime's Jonah Sharp led to Smith recording for Sharp's influential Reflective Records; just before leaving for British climes, Smith recorded tracks which were released as the Thrub EP in early 1994. Spending the rest of the year consolidating his base in England, Smith returned to Reflective for 1995's Wild Card EP and his first full-length, Homebrew. One of the first jungle albums given wide issue only in America, Homebrew added a stark minimalist slant to the drum'n'bass field, with dubby basslines and skewed rhythms that sounded a bit off-kilter even for jungle. Smith later moved to Fused & Bruised for his second album Compression Point, and continued DJing heavily. He's also recorded for Interference and Helix. ~ John Bush, Rovi