Upon the 1991 dissolution of the British trance-rock quartet
Loop, bassist Neil McKay and John Wills formed
the Hair and Skin Trading Company, leaving guitarists
Robert Hampson and Scott Dawson to found the highly experimental
Main, a project combining the aesthetics of ambient music with layered tapestries of droning electric guitar textures and dark, ominous soundscapes.
Main's debut EP releases, 1991's Hydra and 1992's Calm -- later collected as the
Hydra-Calm LP -- were their most aggressive, as well as the closest to conventional rock idioms; beginning with 1992's stellar
Dry Stone Feed, the duo began exploring ambient sounds, gradually eliminating all traces of percussion and rhythm from their work.
With 1993's
Firmament and the triple-LP set Motion Pool,
Main began pushing into "drumless space," a realm of cold, alien sound with little resemblance to conventional musical structure; 1994's
Firmament II severed all remaining ties to tradition, focusing instead on two epic, abstract environmental pieces with no earthly precedent or connection. After 1995's Ligature, a collection of early material remixed by the likes of
Paul Schütze,
Jim O'Rourke, and
Paul Kendall,
Main mounted Hz; their most ambitious project yet, it compiled a series of six monthly EPs pushing harmonic drones, industrial intensity, and atmospheric minimalism to their furthest extremes. Upon completing the third installment in the
Firmament series, Dawson left the duo in late 1996, and
Hampson continued
Main primarily as a solo project, returning with
Firmament IV in 1998. After the turn of the millennium, Tau was released on K-Raa-K in 2002, followed by Exosphere, part of the Staalplaat label's Mort aux Vaches series, in 2004. In 2006
Hampson announced he would be retiring the
Main name to focus on his solo work, feeling burdened by fans and critics associating his work with the guitar, an instrument he had grown tired of long before. There was a period of dormancy, but by 2010
Hampson was deep into work on several solo albums and by October of the year announced he would be re-instating
Main once more. He was joined this time by composer Stephan Mathieu and the two worked together on 2013's Ablation for Editions Mego, the first full-length
Main album since 2006. ~ Jason Ankeny