ABcentric Signal active
Chrome ABcentric logo over the Detroit skyline and river at night, two silhouetted figures among synths, guitars and studio racks, with a satellite, radio towers, a dish and a spacecraft beaming a red signal. Text: Mutated in Ann Arbor, forged in Detroit. Transmitting since 1997.
Incoming transmission · Ann Arbor ⇄ Lansing

ABcentric

Mutated in Ann Arbor. Forged in Detroit. Alternative electronic music from Michigan, transmitting since 1997.

ElectroEBMIndustrialSynthpopShoegaze
Operator AJason Anderson
Operator BMarc Breckenridge
Studio hours logged1,000+
Incoming · work in progress

Phase Shift

Phase Shift test cover: the ABcentric logo over a red and violet sky, a huge spacecraft beaming a signal down over the Detroit skyline, with a radar dish and radio towers on either side
Test cover · artwork not final

The new album is still in progress. These are the tracks so far, with more on the way.

  1. Monarchy
  2. Bulldog
  3. Strawberry
  4. Blinded by the Sun
  5. Sideline
  6. Leads Me Home

More tracks in the works.

Hardware · new album

Jason's guitars

1964 Gretsch Tennessean. 2001 Ibanez RG550. Santo 316 Tonecaster. PRS S2 Standard double cut with tremolo. PRS S2 Standard Singlecut hardtail with Lamb of God Fluence pickups. 1993 Gibson Les Paul Studio. Japanese Fender Stratocaster with Fluence pickups. Fender Jazzmaster.

Acoustic & archtop

1935 Gibson L-50. 1975 Guild D-25. 2023 Yamaha FSX5.

Amps

Fender Super Champ XD. PRS Tremonti head with Eminence speakers. Yamaha THR30II.

Pedals

Electro-Harmonix, Boss, Line 6, GupTech, Ibanez, Arion, Dunlop, EVH and Creation Audio Labs.

Studio · Marc's Playroom

Recorded and mixed at Marc's Playroom in Ann Arbor: a gold-modded Soundcraft Ghost, Alesis HD24XR, racks of Lexicon, dbx and Stam, a Neve and Manley mastering chain, and a wall of synths from the OB-Xa to the Virus.

Full studio layout →
Archive · released 2016

Phase Three

Phase Three album cover: rows of brass horn speakers against a red sky, ABCENTRIC in distressed white type
  1. Clear Conscience5:10
  2. War Zone5:31
  3. Penitentiary4:56
  4. The Sun Will Shine6:01
  5. Distant Early Warning*4:57
  6. The Creep4:31
  7. Wait For You5:12
  8. Tronik6:35
  9. Why?5:46
  10. New World5:14
  11. My Love4:10
  12. Parvo5:19

All songs by Jason Anderson and Marc Breckenridge.
*Rush cover (Lee/Lifeson/Peart), used with permission.
Recorded and mixed at Marc's Playroom, Ann Arbor, MI.

Buy / stream Phase Three on Bandcamp →
Making of · Phase Three sessions
Marc, holding a Skinny Puppy Worlock 12-inch single, and Jason, with a red Fender guitar, sitting in front of a large mixing desk and rack gear at Marc's Playroom
Marc and Jason at the desk, Marc's Playroom
Jason in headphones and a cap playing a sunburst Fender bass in a home studio, with a DX7, JX-8P and other synths stacked on stands behind him and a Rush plaque on the wall
Tracking bass
A black Dean Cadillac and a sunburst Gibson hollowbody in front of a stack of synths, including an Oberheim, and a tall rack of outboard gear
Guitars, synths and the rack
Jason in glasses and a striped shirt at a Soundcraft Ghost console, with a rack of dbx and Focusrite gear behind him
Jason at the Ghost desk
Marc in a shirt and tie and Jason in a striped shirt sitting in front of the Soundcraft Ghost console and outboard rack
Marc and Jason at the desk
Marc at the Soundcraft Ghost console looking toward the room, with the outboard rack and monitors in front of him
Marc at the desk
A three-tier keyboard stand with a Moog Little Phatty on top, a Korg Wavestation EX in the middle and an Oberheim polysynth on the bottom
Little Phatty, Wavestation EX and the Oberheim
Head-on view of the Soundcraft Ghost console with Mackie HR824 monitors and a rack of Focusrite ISA220 and dbx 1066 compressors
The Ghost desk and outboard rack
Marc standing beside the Soundcraft Ghost console and outboard rack, with a framed Nine Inch Nails print on the wall
Marc in the control room
Three racks of gear including an Alesis HD24 showing the song Wait For You, Lexicon effects, a Manley Variable-Mu, Tascam decks, Kurzweil K2000s and a Roland JV-2080
The racks, with “Wait For You” on the HD24
Hardware · 80s and 90s, mostly

Phase Three gear

Synths

Roland JP-8080, JV-2080, D-50, Juno 106, Alpha Juno-II, JX-8P. Sequential Prophet 5, Prophet 08R. Korg M1R, Wavestation AD, Triton rack. Yamaha SY77, EX5R. Moog Voyager rack, Little Phatty. Kurzweil K2000RS, K2000VPR, K2VXS. Access Virus rack, Nord Lead 4R, Kawai K1R, Oberheim OB-Xa.

Guitars & amps

Fender Billy Corgan Strat, Jazzmaster. Dean Cadillac. Gibson SG Standard, J15, 135. Fender Super Champ XD, Peavey Deuce, Marshall Silver Jubilee, Mesa Boogie Mark III. Krank Rev Jr., EHX Big Muff, Line 6 DL4 and MM4.

Production

Soundcraft Ghost desk modified by Creation Audio Labs. Genelec monitors, Alesis HD24XR, a rack of Lexicon PCM81s. AKG C-414 B-ULS, JZ Vintage 11, Shure SM7B. UA 6176, Focusrite ISA220, Aurora Audio GTQC, Manley Variable-Mu.

Racks of synth modules and outboard gear lit red in Marc's studio
No Auto-Tune · No soft synths
Transmission log · how it started

It began after a Banshees show

  1. Contact made in Detroit

    Jason and Marc met after a Siouxsie and the Banshees concert and discovered they were both regulars at City Club.

  2. DēLIEN forms

    Jason starts the industrial band DēLIEN with Pete Greko. The band's first recordings are made at Pete's studio in West Bloomfield.

  3. Marc steps in

    Marc helped DēLIEN record a demo, heard real potential in it, and offered to record and produce the band's first CD, ALH84001. That year DēLIEN also plays its biggest show yet, on the bill with Hanzel und Gretyl.

  4. ALH84001 released

    DēLIEN's debut CD, recorded and produced by Marc, comes out.

  5. Signal goes quiet

    DēLIEN starts headlining and plays with Apoptygma Berzerk. Then Jason left the band to go back to school, later marrying Carrie and playing in Tri-County Blues, Elemental and Surrounded by Sound. Marc built his own project, Siegemachine, with friend Donny Gradson.

  6. All Radio Is Dead

    Siegemachine, Marc and Donny Gradson, released All Radio Is Dead.

  7. ABcentric is born

    With Siegemachine wrapped, Jason and Marc reconnected and started recording together under the name ABcentric, beginning work on Phase Three at Marc's Playroom.

  8. Phase Three released

    Twelve tracks, recorded and mixed at Marc's Playroom with no Auto-Tune and no soft synths.

  9. New music begins

    Jason brought in songs he wrote during COVID, and the two started working on new music together.

  10. New album in progress

    The new album is still in progress.

Marc at the synth rig with headphones and an oscilloscope, Jason playing a white guitar at the mic, in an early studio session
ARCHIVE FRAME · early session — Marc at the rig, Jason on guitar
Archive · late 1990s

DēLIEN · ALH84001

The first CD Marc recorded and produced for Jason's industrial band DēLIEN, and the start of everything that became ABcentric. Jason wrote most of the music and sang most of the songs; Marc recorded and produced, and helped as the band's manager.

MIDI & synths

2 Kurzweil K2VXs, Kurzweil K2000RVP. Korg 01/Wfd, Wavestation SR, M1. Oberheim Matrix 1000. Roland D-50, Paraphonic 505. ARP Axxe. Sequential Multitrack. Kawai K3M. E-mu ESI-32. Novation Drum Station, Alesis D4.

Effects

Lexicon MPX-1. DigiTech Studio Quad V2. Alesis Midiverb, Quadraverb. Zoom 1204. Two circuit-hacked Speak & Spells.

Production

Mackie 32-8 console, Mackie HR824 monitors. Alesis ADAT-XT, two Tascam DA-30 MkIIs, two Sony MDS-501 MiniDisc decks. ART Pro VLA, two dbx 1066s, dbx 2215, Alesis 3630. AKG C3000, two Shure SM58s. ProCo snakes. Yaesu FRG-100 shortwave receiver.

DēLIEN live at their second show: one at a synth rig with headphones and an oscilloscope, one playing a white guitar at the mic, one at a Korg keyboard
DēLIEN live, 2nd show
Jason in a ball cap and headphones at a small mixer and keyboard in a blue-walled room covered in band posters, including Curve, with a Bart Simpson doll on the speaker
Jason's writing room
Late-90s studio corner with keyboards on stands, a rolling mixer rack, outboard gear and a Howard Jones poster
Marc's Playroom, late '90s
Marc in headphones at a large mixing console, looking back over his shoulder
Marc at the desk

DēLIEN live

Black-and-white photo of a performer in white face paint behind a rack of keyboards and gear on stage
Live with Hanzel und Gretyl
A bald man in a leather jacket working a large mixing board at a club, with people standing behind it in the dark
At the board
Two keyboardists on a small club stage, one with long hair at a synth rig and one behind a keyboard labeled BORG
Two keyboard rigs
Young man with a spiked mohawk in a leather jacket, sitting by a window
Off stage
A singer at the mic beside a keyboardist in white face paint behind an orange-topped gear table
Live with HuG, 1997
A singer in white face paint at the mic while a keyboardist with long dreadlocks plays through stage fog
Fog and keys
ALH84001 front cover: red DēLIEN and ALH84001 lettering over a black-and-white microscope image with a 1 micrometer scale bar ALH84001 back cover: Pete Greko and Jason Anderson back to back against a brick wall, holding sparklers, with the tracklist

ALH84001 · the CD

Carpe Mortem Records · CMR 102 · Pete Greko and Jason Anderson

  1. Don't Look Back6:51
  2. Critical5:30
  3. Чephoe Пpocmpahcmbo5:13
  4. Red Pod6:13
  5. Rework III5:27
  6. Venus5:17
  7. Take4:59
  8. Inherit4:25
  9. Lost Belief6:36
  10. Awakening5:22
  11. Survival6:02
  12. Missing5:04
The 1997 DēLIEN demo cassette in its case: a line-drawn alien face above the DēLIEN logo and the tracklist Unfolded demo j-card with the alien face, tracklist and credits over a printed synth wave generator schematic
Demo cassette side A label: Survival, Lost Belief Demo cassette side B label: Awakening, Inherit, Missing

The 1997 demo tape

DēLIEN is Jason Anderson and Pete Greko · Produced and mixed by Marc Breckenridge · Recorded at Marc's Playroom

  1. SurvivalA1
  2. Lost BeliefA2
  3. AwakeningB1
  4. InheritB2
  5. MissingB3

Marc's first session with the band. All five songs also appear on ALH84001.

Cover design by Kris Slavin and Pete Greko · Graphic production and duplication by World Class Tapes, Ann Arbor · Photography by Marc Breckenridge

The late DēLIEN writing room

Where Jason wrote at the end of DēLIEN, with the Sequential and Kurzweil stacked under the Cure, Prince and the Beatles.

Wide view of a wood-paneled home studio: a beige computer, two studio monitors, a Sequential synth stacked over a Kurzweil keyboard, and a small mixer
Close-up of the back panel of a Sequential synth with an alien sticker and orange MIDI cables, stacked on a Kurzweil K2000
Sequential over the Kurzweil
Frequencies · what we tune in to

Where the signal comes from

Marc's dial

  • Howard Jones
  • Information Society
  • Pink Floyd
  • OMD
  • 'Til Tuesday
  • Ric Ocasek
  • Pet Shop Boys
  • The Eagles
  • Phil Collins
  • Cracker
  • The Beloved
  • Erasure
  • The Dream Academy

Where we meet

  • Skinny Puppy
  • Front Line Assembly
  • Front 242
  • Haujobb
  • Apoptygma Berzerk
  • Hanzel und Gretyl
  • Rush
  • Covenant
  • Nine Inch Nails
  • Pop Will Eat Itself
  • Tears for Fears
  • Delerium
  • The Cure
  • Depeche Mode

Jason's dial

  • Smashing Pumpkins
  • The Beatles
  • Lush
  • My Bloody Valentine
  • Swervedriver
  • Van Halen
  • Black Sabbath
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • Curve
  • Wilco
  • Prince
  • Miles Davis
  • Wynton Marsalis
  • Moev
  • Sloan
ABcentric artwork: a radio-tower ABcentric logo above the Ann Arbor, Detroit and Lansing skylines at night, each marked with its coordinates and linked by red and violet signal beams over a river. Text: Three cities // One signal.
Operators · who sends the signal

Two stations, one frequency

Station A · Lansing area

Jason Anderson

Writes most of the music and sings most of it. Programs the keyboards and plays guitar and bass.

Does
Songwriting, vocals, guitar, bass
Programs in
Cubase
Go-to guitar
2001 Ibanez RG550
Read Jason's bio →
Station B · Ann Arbor

Marc Breckenridge

Refines, records and produces every track at his pro-level studio, Marc's Playroom. He also adds vocals and brings his own ideas to the songwriting.

Does
Production, recording, mixing, vocals, co-writing
Studio
Marc's Playroom, Ann Arbor
Other project
Siegemachine
Read Marc's bio →
Uplink · stay on frequency

Open a channel

Follow along for the new album, or reach out about bookings, licensing or press.

Bandcamp abcentric.bandcamp.com Streaming Link coming soon Email Address coming soon