I Monster are an English electronic music duo, composed of the Sheffield based record producers Dean Honer and Jarrod Gosling.
[5] They were already making techno music akin of Aphex Twin, Autechre and Black Dog[6] together for years when they founded I Monster in 1998.
After finishing their first album These Are Our Children in 1999, the two musicians received an Arts Council grant to press 500 CDs which they had to give away for free, due to sample clearance issues.
[7] After British radio host Nemone picked up the song and played it on her show, interest grew in the duo and they signed to Instant Karma shortly thereafter.
The resulting project, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control was released in September 2008 on One Little Indian Records, and saw I Monster co-write and co-produce over three quarters of the album.
2013 also saw the release of I Monster Presents People Soup, an album heavily featuring a fictional band entirely consisting of female singers over more pop-oriented instrumentation.
[citation needed] Bright Sparks, a two hour-long documentary, produced by I Monster and Dave Spiers of GForce, about the origins and pioneers of electronic music, was released in 2015,[12] joined later by an accompanying album of the same title in 2016.
Interviewees include Adrian Utley, Daniel Miller, Billy Currie, Karl Hyde, Alessandro Cortini, Will Gregory and many more.
[13] The album Bright Sparks consists of eight songs paying tribute to different innovators of electronic music, including but not limited to Robert Moog, Herbert Deutsch, Ken Freeman, Don Buchla, Harry Chamberlin and Alan R. Pearlman among many others.
[5][7] Honer, alongside DJ Parrot and Jason Buckle, was a founding member of electronic music group The All Seeing I, whose 1998 hit record "The Beat Goes On" was most notably covered by Britney Spears on her debut album ...Baby One More Time.
[3] Honer plays in multiple other bands together with long-time collaborator Adam Flanagan, such as The Eccentronic Research Department, The Moonlandingz (together with Lias Kaci Saoudi and Saul Adamczewski of Fat White Family) and The International Teachers of Pop (together with Leonore Wheatley from The Soundcarriers).
The music was created as a soundtrack to a fictional TV series, featuring spoken word written by Goddard and recorded by HK119, Russell Senior, Richard Speight and Terry O'Connor.
[15] In 2020, Honer formed yet another group, Another New Thing, with Don Himlin and Paul Nagle, releasing their debut album XYZZY in 2021 via Dipped In Gold.
Influences for the acid folk band include horror films Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and The Stepford Wives.
[22] Gosling himself called the Regal Worm output "a continuation of [I Monster], but channeled through a more progressive rock and psychedelic style rather than electronic pop".