This week on Midday Music, Evan Miller hosted a live interview and studio session with Dayton musician Tim Krug, who composes and performs electronic music under the name Halicon. Krug performed live at Yellow Cab Tavern on November 3rd. On the program, he spoke about the early influences that inspired him to create electronic music, including the work of English pioneers Aphex Twin and Autechre. He also told stories about Dayton’s thriving 1990s rave scene, and about the challenges of performing electronic music in an era before portable computers were readily available. Tim Krug performed several pieces live in the studio, including original compositions and a cover of an Aphex Twin’s 1995 song "At the Heart of It All." In addition to his work as Halicon, Krug plays in bands Oh Condor, Hexadiode, and Brainiac.
Standing over a tangle of audio wires and synthesizers in WYSO’s performance studio, Tim Krug looked like he might have been a physicist performing a sensitive experiment. He told Evan that his interest in experimental electronic music has always placed him outside the mainstream, even in Dayton’s 1990s rave scene. He recalled,
“There was a huge rave scene in Dayton back then in the ‘90s. I used to go to a lot of raves and be the one boring, sober guy at the rave, just hoping for the guy to show up with a drum machine instead of turntables… I wasn’t as connected with that part of the culture; I liked the noisy drum machine and synthesizers.”
Krug said his interest in electronic music was sparked in the early ‘90s by groundbreaking British artists like Autechre and Aphex Twin. He told Evan that he was attracted to the mixture of transcendence and dissonance that he heard in their music:
“What drew me to most music in general was the marrying of something ethereal and beautiful with something really gritty and noisy and you don't even really know what it is, something kind of unexpected. I like the contrast of that. That’s what drew me to bands like Sonic Youth and Brainiac back then, and also acts like Autechre and Aphex Twin. They would have these mechanical, gross-sounding beats with really beautiful string sections over it.”
When Krug began writing electronic music in the mid 1990s, technological barriers limited his live performance capabilities. He remembers carrying “a whole desktop computer” equipped with tracking programs to each gig—until someone damaged his equipment with a fire extinguisher during a performance. After a Halicon tour in California, Krug shifted his efforts toward other projects, including his long-time indie-rock group, Oh Condor, and, later, industrial dance group Hexadiode. He has also performed with renowned Dayton band Brainiac in several reunion shows.
Now, after a 20-year hiatus, Krug is revisiting his electronic side. In 2020, he began releasing vintage Halicon songs on Bandcamp and streaming services. Many of the songs date to his first composition in the late ‘90s. “I’m clearing house so I can work on something new,” he said. Now, he’s started releasing new recordings, including a cover of Aphex Twin’s “At the Heart of it All.” He says we can expect to continue to hear new music from him. “I’m trying hard to do it more consistently now—I’ve kind of fallen back in love with it,” he told Evan.
Tim Krug performed at Yellow Cab Tavern on November 3rd, alongside Cincinnati electronic group Black Signal. For more information about Krug's upcoming releases and performances, visit his website, halicon.com, or his Instagram.
Text by Peter Day, adapted from a live studio interview by Evan Miller on November 1st, 2023.
