sanso-xtro is Melissa Agate. Born and raised in Adelaide, Australia, Melissa is a multi-instrumentalist who makes a kind of alien folk music with a variety of electronic and acoustic instruments. She is no newcomer to the experimental music scene, being exposed very early in life as the drummer of Australian avant-rock outfit Sindog Jellyroll. Since then she has refined her styles and perfected what she believes to be a genuinely personal sound.

Finding herself discontented with the trappings of the rock genre, it was not long before Agate discovered electronic music and began to experiment with as many different instruments as she could manage to acquire. From acoustic guitar and ukulele to traditional bells and kalimba, anything at hand was added to the rich soundscape of her creative vision. In doing this, Melissa has created something truly original; accessible but very difficult to define in genre. Her debut album ‘Sentimentalist’ was released on Type Records (UK) in 2005. Inspired by her antipodean background, marsupials, sunrise, sunset, heatwaves and also from a life-changing move to British shores, ‘Sentimentalist’ is deeply reflective and unashamedly visual. Subtle analogue experimentation and brave acoustic instrumentation combine and converge equally.

Agate’s influences are as far reaching as her musical ambition, and she takes well-informed references from avant-jazz, blues and experimental electronic works. Moments on her recorded output project hazy echoes of Robert Johnson, before colliding with the sublime analogue chic of Stereolab or Broadcast. Elsewhere, skeletal outlines of Opiate or Mum drift into angular rhythmical sounds explored by Supersilent or Radian. Yet rather than try and emulate another artist, instead Agate takes ideas to add to her ever changing musical ideal. It is her goal to produce an honest sound, something that is true to her soul, and she succeeds magnificently.

After a seven year stay in London, sanso-xtro leaped back to South Australia for a short while to reconnect, swim in the Southern Ocean and awake to the sound of kookaburras whilst writing and recording her second album. Carefully selected fragments of musical history are lovingly woven together creating a magical album, and one not to be taken lightly under any circumstances.

‘fountain fountain, joyous mountain’ is scheduled for release on Digitalis (US) in October 2010.