Todays Tune: Omni Trio - Renegade Snares

Rob Haigh, also known as Omni Trio, is a British electronic, ambient and experimental musician.

In the early eighties he released a series of experimental ambient albums under the names Robert Haigh and Sema - the most notable being ‘Three Seasons Only’ and ‘Notes From Underground’. He also contributed to several Nurse with Wound projects and formed an industrial avant funk band called The Truth Club together with Trefor Goronwy, who would go on to join This Heat, Camberwell Now and become involved with music in the former Soviet Union..

In the nineties Rob developed a unique style of what has become known as ‘ambient Drum and Bass’ and released six acclaimed albums under the name Omni Trio. The Omni Trio sound is notable for its intricate orchestrated production and atmospheric sound palette. Omni Trio was one of the original drum and bass producers, who first released for Moving Shadow as early as 1993. He produced several massive anthems in the period now known as "old skool", including the piano-led "Renegade Snares", "Thru the Vibe", "Feel Good" and the classic "Mainline". Both these featured on his first LP, The Deepest Cut (1995), which is recognised as one of the first jungle albums.

He followed up quickly with Haunted Science in 1996, which included well known tracks like "Trippin' on Broken Beats" and "Nu Birth of Cool". Mainstream trends in dancefloor-oriented drum and bass rapidly diverged from his musical style, and subsequent albums Skeleton Keys (1997), the Detroit techno-influenced Byte Size Life (1999), and Even Angels Cast Shadows (2001) produced no big hits on the scale of his early singles, but they further cemented his reputation as one of the finest album-oriented musicians in drum and bass. Indeed, he was the first artist in the genre to produce six full-length artist albums. The track First Contact made it on the GTA III's MSX FM.

Since 2004 after the release of the sixth and final Omni Trio album ‘Rogue Satellite’, Rob has been working on a solo album of "post Minimalist sonic landscapes" called ‘From the Air’ and is collaborating with experimentalist Hafler Trio.

The Omni Trio song "Renegade Snares" is featured in the video game Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition, "First Contact" (off "Even Angels Cast Shadows") is featured in Grand Theft Auto 3.