Simon Shackleton is a British producer, DJ and photographer whose musical life began in classical training — piano from age five, all eight UK grades by fourteen, and a childhood as a cathedral choir soloist. At university he formed Headless Chickens with a young Thom Yorke, then partnered with schoolmate Howie Saunders in Flickman, which evolved into the electronic-punk band Lunatic Calm. A Fatboy Slim remix of "Roll the Dice" and a label push around "Leave You Far Behind" gave them a headstart, though corporate label politics and distributor collapses derailed the project.
From 1996 Shackleton flooded his own labels Fused & Bruised and later Una Recordings with music under aliases including Elite Force, Frac-R, Futurecore and Tronic. Elite Force became his primary vehicle, winning Beatport's 2011 Breaks Track of the Year and taking him from Coachella to Burning Man to China and Korea.
His recent, deeply personal project The Shadowmaker — which he writes, sings, mixes and masters entirely himself — sits closer to Massive Attack and Portishead than the dancefloor.