Skintone were an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 musical duo during the 1990s. They were based in Bray

Bray

Bray is a town in north County Wicklow, Ireland. It is a busy urban centre and seaside resort, with a population of 31,901 making it the fourth largest in Ireland as of the 2006 census...

. They released one album, In Slow Motion and their best-known track, Lennox Avenue Butterfly featured on several contemporary ambient and chill-out compilations, along with artists like The Orb

The Orb

Throughout 1989, the Orb, along with Martin Glover, developed the musical genre of ambient house through the use of a diverse array of samples and recordings. The culmination of its musical work came toward the end of the year when the group recorded a session for John Peel on BBC Radio 1...

, Soundlab

Soundlab

Soundlab was a collective of artists, both sound and visual, that started in the East Village, New York City around the mid 90's. Founding members were Howard Goldkrand, Beth Coleman and Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky and included many musicians and artists from the Illbient scene including DJ...

, Röyksopp

Röyksopp

Röyksopp is a Norwegian electronic music duo from Tromsø, formed in 1998. Since their inception, the band's line-up has included Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland....

 and Groove Armada

Groove Armada

Groove Armada is an English electronic music duo from London, England comprising Andy Cato and Tom Findlay. They are perhaps best known for their singles "I See You Baby" and "Superstylin'"...

. They were one of the relatively few Irish electronic acts in the 1990s.

Their debut (and indeed only) album was released on Peak Records, a small Dublin-based record company which appears to have disappeared in 1996, judging by their website's last update.

Skintone were described as "A cross fertilization between Orbital and Liz Cocteau" and "This talented team carve out cool tracks with a sublime technoballad flavour" by Future Music. Sound on Sound

Sound on Sound

Sound on Sound is an independently-owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, UK. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, and interviews with industry professionals...

magazine said "Skintone's music suggests late night sessions when the rest of the world is asleep".

The duo fuses Ann Carroll's voice with Brian Kelly's music. Ann and Brian knew each other for a number of years, but had only been working together musically since January 1996. Brian handled the engineering and production on the album, while Ann took care of all vocal duties. "The inspiration behind Skintone was to combine electronic and soundtrack music with vocals" says Brian. "We owe as much to film composers as we do to dance music".

External links

• Free, legal download of album : http://onelazyear.com/skintone.htm
• Record company page : http://ireland.iol.ie/~murraycp/skintone.html