Biography
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Born In
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, United States
Cloudkicker is a one man Instrumental-Rock / Progressive-Metal project by Ben Sharp (A.K.A. B.M. Sharp) from Columbus, Ohio, USA, heavily influenced by math metal and post-rock. Sharp utilizes drum machines and custom-tuned guitars in his recordings. Cloudkicker's first album, The Discovery, was made in 2008.
Aviation has been a major recurring theme across multiple releases. Most of the song titles, album titles, and art work are inspired, derived, or influenced by aviation.
The project has received a lot of attention despite lack of a record deal, and is entirely self-financed and self-produced. Ben has stated numerous times that he has no intention to ever sign a record deal. Notably, Devin Townsend stated in December 2010 that "Cloudkicker is really good stuff!" via his Facebook page. Also, Riley Breckenridge of the band Thrice named Beacons as one of his favorite albums of 2010.
In April of 2014 Cloudkicker embarked on a (presumably) once-in-a-lifetime tour of the US with Intronaut and Tesseract. Intronaut joined Ben as the backing band to make a live performance feasible, referring to this collaboration as "Nautkicker." A "Live" album was recorded in Austin, TX on April 6, 2014 at Fathom Tree Recording Studio, set to be released in November 2014. The band played the live set in its entirety in one take with crowd noise from the performance in Cleveland, OH dubbed in later. It is being released by Century Media due to the legal/financial issues raised by Intronaut being signed to the label. Due to this the album will not be available as a free download like all other Cloudkicker releases. Ben has been adamant that he is not signed to Century Media nor will he be signing with any other label in the future.
In October of 2015 Ben announced that he will no longer be releasing physical copies of his music once the current stock of physical copies is sold out, and all future music would be available only via digital formats.
Bandcamp: cloudkicker.bandcamp.com (discography available for free download)
Blog: www.blog.cloudkickermusic.com (personal and Cloudkicker-related updates)
Soundcloud: www.soundcloud.com/bmsharp (unreleased loops, song ideas, etc.)
Faceboook: https://www.facebook.com/Cloudkicker-73914736084/ (Formerly a fan page now run by Ben. Cloudkicker updates, music recommendations, etc)
Discography:
Solitude (2020)
Subsume (2020 Remaster)
Unending (2019) (EP)
Woum (2015) (EP)
Little Histories (2014) (EP)**
Live with Intronaut (2014) (Full Album)
Subsume (2013) (Full album)
Hello (2013) (Single)
Signal/Noise (2012) (Single)
Fade (2012) (Full album)
Let Yourself Be Huge (2011) (Full album)
Loop (2011) (Unreleased tracks compilation)
Beacons (2010) (Full album)
]]][[[ (2/2010), re-released as A New Heavenly Body (11/2010) (EP)*
Portmanteau (2009) (EP)
The Map is Not the Territory (2008) (EP)
The Discovery (2008) (Full album)
*A New Heavenly Body and "Brackets" are the same album. The distinction exists because A New Heavenly Body was a remaster/mix of "Brackets", and the original "Brackets" was removed. The original names were eventually returned to the remasters/mixes, making A New Heavenly Body obsolete.
**Signal/Noise was included as a bonus track on the digital release.
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