"nerve filter" (aka "Nerve.Filter") is an electronic music act from Seattle, Washington; its sole member is Tom Shear.

"nerve.filter" started in 1995, and is considered a side project of Shear's "Assemblage 23". "Assemblage 23" was still unsigned at the time, and after completing A23's "Wires" tape, Shear had begun work on new "Assemblage 23" material. The writing sessions proved unsatisfying, however, and were plagued by writer's block and a lack of direction. To jumpstart his creative engines, Shear decided to do some tracks in a totally different style than he was accustomed to.

The result was "nerve.filter". Combining elements of techno, and the then-popular rave sound, "nerve.filter" was hard-edged and dark, but also exhibited a sense of humor in spots (the early track "MTV Sucks" took samples from MTV promos and twisted them to say derogatory things about the cable music channel). Shear also experimented with sampling other artists and twisting the samples beyond recognition. The track "Melting" was built around very heavily manipulated samples of "Bjork" from an old "Sugarcubes" track, while "Back & Forth" was built entirely out of samples from "Skinny Puppy" albums save for a handful of sounds.

Ironically, although "nerve.filter" was an Assemblage 23 side-project, it was "nerve.filter" that first had a label release some tracks before A23 ever did. The now-defunct San Francisco label 21st Circuitry released the first two Nerve Filter tracks on their "DeathRave 2010" compilation in 1996: the hard, bleepy "Melting" (with the aforementioned "Bjork" samples) and the hyper-rave "Tech 153" (which took its name from the title Shear had scrawled on the disk when he first saved the song... 153 was a reference to the BPM of the song).

Shortly thereafter, Shear completed a full 10-track tape entitled "Evasion of Primacy". Probably less than 50 of the tapes were ever made and they were basically sent out as demos or to college radio stations and close friends. A few years later, 21st Circuitry asked "nerve.filter" to submit a new track for their "Dark Techno 1-9-9" compilation. The result was the manic, almost drill n' bass track "Ritalin".

Not long after, Assemblage 23 finally started to gain more attention and required more of Shear's time. Although some "nerve.filter" remixes happened in the meantime, it wasn't until 2006 that a proper 'official' "nerve.filter" debut album, "Linear", would be released.

Official website (currently offline): www.nervefilter.com

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