Cornelius

In 1997, finding an article about Cornelius' first American release Fantasma was easier than clicking on an urban comedy on the WB network. The justifiable amount of press focused on the album's cut-and-paste aesthetic -- the way it jumped from cartoonish samples to dreamy, My Bloody Valentine-style noise to Beach Boys-like harmonizing and down-tempo beats. This led to a veritable tidal wave of remix requests that seemed to find a Cornelius remix on virtually every indie release within a 3000-mile radius. Curiously, his live performances shifted away from these experiments, instead presenting stripped-down garage pop and theremin solos. He has been relatively quiet since, and the world will have to wait to see if Cornelius' lauded studio wizardry was just an illusion.