Pete Pritchard: Producer, Composer, Remixer, Entrepreneur. Pete has made well in excess of a thousand records as a producer or remixer under the names Pete Pritchard, PTP, Clock (with Stu Allan), Lance Ellington (as producer and co artist), West End (as occasional remixer), Visa (with Stu Allan), KooLr, Kind of Dope, SoundTrack SoundSystem and a host of others over three decades. Pete also was a founding partner of Media Records UK and founder of Nukleuz, Big In Ibiza, Power Station recordings and KooLr amongst others. Even with all of this huge variety of output Pete has never strayed from his fundamental desire to make music. This has been accomplished in every one of his roles and doing it to his best ability has always been the goal.

Pete studied music at The City University where his main focus was to get better at composition and playing jazz. The course was also one which was embracing technology in music with a recording studio and some very cutting edge instruments and computing most of which, oddly given his subsequent career, Pete ignored. Instead Pete chose to focus on Big Band composition and the Uni Big Band that he had assembled.

After University Pete created his own Jazz fusion ensemble which gigged around London. This led to partnering with singer Lance Ellington and being signed to A&M, to make an Album in Minneapolis at Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’ Flyte Tyme studios with their engineer Steve Hodge. This album “Pleasure and Pain” has recently had its digital platform debut on Pete’s KooLr® imprint. Pete and Lance have also made new versions of songs they penned 30 years ago for imminent release. Ultimately the album had limited commercial success but the experience was immeasurable for Pete.

After leaving A&M as an artist Pete hooked up with the founders of Italian Dance label, Media Records, to set up Media Records UK. In part to mirror the Italian method: In house studios and production working with successful UK DJ’s, with Pete at the helm. This led pretty quickly to Pete hooking up with Radio and Club DJ Stu Allan to make a track, “ Holding On”, that was a huge club success under the act name Clock. The next target was to make it a chart success, which they achieved.

Clock went on to have 14 consecutive UK pop chart hits, peaking with the Euro dance smash “Whoomph! There it is” peaking at no 4 in the UK pop charts. They had two other top tens and a host of tracks peaking between 12 & 18. Stu and Pete were personally responsible for the production and mixes of every record.

Towards the end of the success of the act Clock, Pete was refocussing his attention on his newly created underground Dance music brand, Nukleuz. The objective was to re find the streets and to discover new talent. This occurred quickly and within a couple of years Nukleuz won the Top Dance Label award at the Music Week awards for the top selling label of 12”s in the UK (and almost certainly in the World), with annual sales of around 500,000. Nukleuz was in effect 5 labels in one, covering many aspects of UK and European harder techno and house, becoming the leading lights of what was called UK Hard House and then Hard Dance (also incorporating Trance music). The Nukleuz brand became massive with multiple tracks on all the major compilation brands. Pete was the executive producer of all the music that came out of the three in house studios having stepped back from the day to day production chores.

Nukleuz remained a major label for years but Pete, recognising another opportunity in the “less hard” styles of dance music also started the imprint, Big In Ibiza. Bii began its life at the time that iTunes and digital services started so, unlike Nukleuz that had so much success as a 12” label, Bii was almost totally a digital label from the start. Both Big In Ibiza and Nukleuz remain dance music brands to this day with a significant loyal fan base.

For a number of years, Pete has composed and recorded a lot of music in his favourite genres of Jazz and Soul and more esoteric beats and tempos which, until now has never been released. That changed after the Covid epidemic when he created the KooLr® label to showcase all these styles that for three decades he never really had enough time for. Since June 2021 KooLr® has been releasing music every week with the objective to see it reach its potential over the next few years. Its core styles are LoFi Hip Hop, Jazzy beats, Jazz, Soul and other instrumental styles.

As a performer Pete was classically trained on the Trombone and to a lesser extent on the Piano (due primarily to the constant craving to play Jazz). He studied composition and still starts every project first and foremost in the mindset of a composer. Technology has more and more enabled Pete to return to his roots composing a broad spectrum of sonics in a way that was only possible in his earlier years with his own bands.

This is the first time Pete has stepped into the spotlight himself rather than shining it on his partners, artists and general cohorts of creativity.  Expressing his inspirations on a genuinely personal level is something he now sees as vital, given his output is currently so focussed on his own personal creative desires. Pete has had a wide and diverse creative journey over a long time but has never felt as happy and comfortable as he is in the music he is now creating. Where it leads will as always be exciting and unpredictable.