Philip Sanderson

Born in 1960, Philip Sanderson first began experimenting with reel to reel tape recorders and rewired ‘circuit bent’ electronic equipment in his teens. He compiled his first cassette Dark Cuttings in 1977 and in 1978 formed the Snatch Tapes label releasing Snatch 1, the first outing for Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey and Storm Bugs (a collaborative project with Steven Ball). 1980 saw the release of Snatch 2 and the first Storm Bugs EP entitled Table Matters as well as the cassette release, Reprint by Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey, and A Safe Substitute by Storm Bugs. Both tapes featured the quirky British synthesizer the VCS3 as the main instrument. The following year 1981, Bright Waves by Thomas & Vezey was the opening track on the Cherry Red Perspectives And Distortion LP and a second Storm Bugs single was released on the French L’invitation au Suicide label. 

In the early 1980s Sanderson collaborated with David Jackman (of Organum fame), Clip from Orior, Michael Denton, as well as recording with the chanteuse Naomi. From this came two more tape releases in the shape of O North and Telephone Music. The second half of the 1980s saw Sanderson working on a range of experimental film projects including Green on the Horizon (made with Steven Ball), Hangway Turning, and Shadowman. 

The involvement with film led to Sanderson working at the London Filmmakers Co-operative in the early 1990s organising screenings before spending the rest of the decade concentrating on creating kinetic sound and light installations, exhibited predominantly in London. Back at the film co-op in 1997 Sanderson bought his first Apple Mac and began to record music again as well as remastering the Storm Bugs back catalogue. The 2000s was marked by a string of re-issues of material on numerous labels including: Fusetron, Anomalous, Vinyl on Demand, Harbinger, and Die Stadt. Releases of new material followed including Seal Pool Sounds in 2006, the Hollow Gravity LP in 2012, Ice Yacht/Pole of Cold in 2015, and Certified Original and Vintage Fakes by Storm Bugs in 2017. The Storm Bugs, always primarily a recording project, began to play live, including at the Harbinger Soundclash in 2014 and Contrapop in 2018.  

Sanderson continues to record and release music, and make short moving image pieces screened at festivals in the UK and worldwide. Pebble Dot Dash the most recent of these is hosted on the Wire Music Magazine’s website.