Danz CM (US synthpop/electropop, formerly Computer Magic)

Danz CM (born Danielle Johnson, February 20, 1989) is an American record producer, songwriter, composer, singer, graphic designer and the founder of the indie record label Channel 9 Records and the media brand Synth History. From 2010 until mid 2020, Danz used the moniker Computer Magic, a name derived from a quote by Viv Savage in This Is Spinal Tap: "quite exciting this computer magic!". In August 2020, she announced that she changed her moniker to Danz CM. Danz writes, produces, records and releases her own music, which Allmusic describes as "spacy, sci-fi influenced synth pop". She has released 4 studio albums (Davos in 2015, Danz in 2018, The Absurdity of Human Existence in 2021, and Berlin Tokyo Shopping Mall Elevator in 2023), 2 compilations (Super Rare in 2017, Covers, Vol. 1 in 2020), a string of EPs and singles, plus Japan edition albums. Danz was born and raised in the Catskill Mountains area in upstate New York, in both Rock Hill and Woodridge. She attended Monticello Public High School. Her mother a social worker, father a handyman and stepfather a mechanic, music and the arts had an unexplained appeal for her at an early age. At 15 she started music blogging and as a teenager she would collect vinyl with money she earned as a pizza counter person. She maintained a music blog named Mewzick from November 2006 until January 2009. From July 2009 until July 2016 she blogged on her site zDanz. At the age of 18, she moved to New York City to attend Hunter College as an affordable alternative to art school. According to Danz, she was a "pretty terrible student", trying to afford rent and the expensive city living by working late nights at restaurants and DJing. She was withdrawn from all her classes because of too many absences. In 2010 at the age of 21, Danz moved in with her mother who had relocated to Florida. Unsure what she wanted to do career-wise, she applied for many jobs at restaurants but couldn't get one despite having experience at many New York City restaurants. In her downtime, she downloaded the DAW Ableton Live. She discovered she was able to make music by ear and learned on her own how to produce music. One of the first songs she completed was "Running", done in a closet on a laptop with a cheap microphone. She reminisced about her first attempts at making music: "I remember showing my mom the music I made and she was like 'How did you do this?' I just thought everyone could write music. I didn't know anything I did was special. It was kind of hard for me to believe. It was like a lightbulb went off after that. I would just make one song after the next and put it up online. And I realized – geez, maybe this is what I was meant to do all along." She picked the moniker Computer Magic, a name derived from a quote by Viv Savage in This Is Spinal Tap: "quite exciting this computer magic!". Talking about her moniker, Danz said: "In the beginning I didn't know what to call myself... I was so sure no one would believe it was just one person making the music, this was like ten years ago when there weren't as many bedroom pop artists, wanted to incite the idea that it was a band, so I named it Computer Magic. I wanted to detract the attention from myself." In 2010, she returned to New York City and worked retail and restaurants again, but this time making music on the side. She started releasing her own songs as free download on her sites zDanz and TheComputerMagic and compiled those songs on various EPs: Hiding From Our Time (2010), Hiding From More of Our Time (2010), Electronic Fences (2011), Get a Job (2011), Spectronic (2011), Orion (2012, released through Kitsune), A Million Years / Another Science (2013), Extra Stuff (2014), Dreams of Better Days (2015). In 2011, she contributed with a cover of the song "Take It or Leave It" by The Strokes for the Stereogum-curated cover album Stereogum Presents... Stroked: A Tribute to Is This It. In the same year she was featured on New Band of the Week on The Guardian and on the Radar Tip of the Day column on NME. Her debut studio album, Davos, was released on October 16, 2015 via her own record label, Channel 9 Records, founded with profits from music licensing. About founding the label Danz said, "Instead of waiting around for the perfect deal, I self-released my music. I designed my own album artwork, booked my own shows until I found a booking agent, took my own promo photos, etc. Eventually I thought to myself, 'Hey, why can't I just start my own label?' I was doing a lot of stuff a label would be doing anyway." She wrote all songs off this album, except "All Day" credited to her, Brian Robertson and Brian Hancock III. Most of the production, engineering and mixing was done by Atomic Heart Studios in New York, NY by Claudius Mittendorfer. The title Davos is a homage to a now-decrepit ski resort where she grew up in upstate New York, where her father worked, although the ski resort closed when she was 3 years old. Three music videos were released to promote this album: "Be Fair" (filmed in Trona Pinnacles), "Hudson", and "Fuzz". On October 7, 2016, she released the Obscure but Visible EP on Channel 9 Records. About the EP she has said, "I think the general feeling for the EP was an open one. In a way, I wanted it to feel lighthearted. I tried to showcase a few different songwriting styles of what I do, too." She made music videos for 4 songs from this EP: "Dimensions", "Gone for the Weekend", "Lonely Like We Are", and "Been Waiting". In 2017, Danz and the musician Cody Crump collaborated on a side project called Cody & Danz. They released the EP Only the Hits on July 14, 2017, on Channel 9 Records digitally and on a limited edition cassette. They made music videos for the songs "Make It in America" and "So Small". On December 15, 2017, Danz released the compilation Super Rare on Channel 9 Records, which included early tracks, Japan exclusives and rarities. On February 23, 2018, Computer Magic released her second album, Danz, titled after her nickname, on Channel 9 Records. According to her, this album is her most personal out of any other record she made. She drew inspiration from her life and characters from films or books. Danz was supported by four music videos, "Amnesia", "Ordinary Life (Message from an A.I. Girlfriend)" (with a concept by Danz and the director Anise Mariko), "Perfect Game", and "Clouds". On March 20, 2020, she released the compilation COVERS 2010–20, later renamed Covers, Vol. 1 which consists of 6 cover versions of songs by No Doubt, Mac DeMarco, Sun Ra, Mark James (famously performed by Elvis Presley), Julee Cruise, and Raf (famously covered by Laura Branigan). In August 2020, Danz announced on W Magazine that she had changed her alias from Computer Magic to Danz CM. Discussing on her official Facebook page the reasons of the moniker change, she mentioned: "I wanted to change it because I outgrew Computer Magic. I outgrew the shy bedroom pop girl a long time ago. Computer Magic might mean something different to you, but to me it represents a skin that I need to shed. So if Charmander is like Computer Magic, Charizard is Danz CM. I kept the CM in there. I hope that makes the change easier. It's not a rebranding it is just me growing." Her third studio album, The Absurdity of Human Existence, was released on March 12, 2021 on Channel 9 Records. Danz wrote, produced and recorded the album, Claudius Mittendorfer mixed it and Joe LaPorta mastered it. Speaking about the album, Danz said that she went through an existential crisis: she experienced feelings of self-doubt, went through an extreme low, was about to break and contemplated the human existence. All that inspired her to write "songs of sadness, songs about falling in love, songs about death, songs about wanting something more out of life." According to her, "it was diving both the deepest I could go emotionally meanwhile perfecting every sound – listening repeatedly to every second, making sure it was perfect