Copy

Copy, aka Portland producer Marius Libman, specializes in a melodic, playfully retro-minded style of instrumental electro-pop, with a sideline in cheeky bootleg remixes of pop hits and a flair for keytar-wielding live performances that have earned him a good deal of local renown as a party-starter (and 2006′s Best New Band award from Willamette Week) despite a relatively low profile outside of Oregon. His exclusive use of analog-sounding synthesizers, coupled with sharp, no-nonsense electronic beats, recalls the simplicity and aesthetic purity of 8-bit computer music, but his tracks typically feature lusher, richly musical textures, carrying rhythmic and stylistic traces of electro-disco, hip-hop, IDM, dubstep, and film music along with the expected synth pop foundation. Libman has performed remix duties for fellow Portland dance acts including Starfucker, Truckasauras, and Panther, though his most like-minded stylistic brethren may be the duo Ratatat, whom he has also remixed and whose E*vax (Evan Mast) co-runs the Portland-based imprint Audio Dregs, which has released Copy’s three albums to date: 2006′s Mobius Beard, 2007′s Hair Guitar, and 2010′s Hard Dream. Alongside those official albums, Libman, as DJ Copy, has released several CD-Rs of unauthorized remixes: two volumes of the Diva mixtape series featuring the likes of Whitney Houston and Mary J. Blige, the self-explanatory Bone Thugs-N-Harmony-N-Copy, which was packaged with some copies of Hair Guitar, and the R. Kelly-tweaking Pied Piper of Electro, which came free with preorders of Hard Dream. Libman is also a member of the bands Astrology (with Panther’s Charlie Salas-Humara) and Atole. ~ K. Ross Hoffman