Charles Reeves (musician)

Born in Griffin, Georgia, Reeves spent his early life in Georgia and Texas and was educated in Europe. He studied contra-bass clarinet, double bass and conducting, with a focus on 20th century French music. Afterward, Reeves returned to America and composed music for Fox Television network. He opened a nightclub, 6th Street Records, which was also a live venue for Austin's well-known 6th Street and its bands. He subsequently began focusing on engineering and production throughout the early 90s at well known Austin recording studios, The Hit Shack, Arlyn Studios, and Audio Image, and eventually converting his three-bedroom house into his own recording studio where he recorded many well-known Texas acts such as Loose Diamonds, Beaver Nelson, Gals Panic, The Ging'bread Men, Troy Campbell, Michael Ramos, Pop Poppins, Laurie Freelove, Claude McCann, JoCarol Pierce, Rich Brotherton, Champ Hood, and Walter Tragert.

In 1996, Reeves moved to New York City, where he became chief engineer of Manhattan Center Studios/Hammerstein Ballroom. During this time, he also ran his own studio out of the Hotel New Yorker, where he worked with Lisa Left-Eye Lopez (TLC), BoyzIIMen, Beans, 247Spyz, Dee-Lite, Apollo Heights, Tru Life, Paul Sorvino, Amy Atchley, Morgan Taylor, Jeff Byrd, Broose Dickinson, as well as mixing for Ray Charles, Tito Puente, MTV, VH1, and many others.

In 1997, he collaborated with British singer and songwriter, Francesca Longrigg of True Noise, producing and recording her album for Reprise. The extended project eventually (in 2003) brought him to London, where he began working with clients such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), Grace Jones, Barry Adamson, Paul Humphreys (OMD), Claudia Brücken (Propaganda), Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones, Jools Holland, Ben Waters, Ivor Guest, Skye Edwards (Morcheeba), Patrissia, Sam Sallon, Dana Boulé, Adam Green, Gambling Hearts, The Cavaliers, Danny Valentine, Saint Jude, Robert Logan, Look, Stranger!, among others.

In 2007, Reeves put out his first solo CD, Help Is on the Way, under his creative sobriquet, The Aklamate, and began composing tracks for Extreme Music. He continued to release music and make remixes under the names of The Aklamate, Edmund Squeeze, as well as in 2010 releasing a series of videos (under both names as collaborative material) featuring lengthy single shots, sometimes as long as twenty minutes in length, with musical scoring.

In October 2010, he travelled to Shanghai to mix Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for the 2010 World Expo, just before beginning a world tour with OMD. Early Spring 2011 saw a continuation of touring with OMD throughout the US and with Grace Jones in Australia and New Zealand, and further remixing under the moniker of Edmund Squeeze and The Aklamate. In the Summer of 2011, he mixed two releases by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: "Live In Berlin" (recorded at Berlin's Tempodom and released as a special booklet and CD) and "Live In New York" (recorded at New York's Terminal 5 and selected tracks released on DVD). In the Autumn of 2011, he did another US tour with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

In early 2012, he worked with the New York-based band The Snow mixing their third album, as well as February 6 release of long-term collaboration with Francesca Longrigg, a high-production-value children's record, The Land of Sometimes.

2013 saw another world tour with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, finishing in August in Toronto, recording and mixing of albums by Scotland-based Jakil and Malta/London-based Nellie Bell. He has since been concentrating on mixing and remixing for varied acts in the UK and the US, such as Cary Nokey, ZZ Ward, The Hush Sound, and Lewis

In 2014, he mixed acts such as Prince, Rachael Cormack, and UB40, then turned his attention to building a new studio complex Sublime Studios to accommodate the influx of mixing and recording work.

In 2015, Reeves started building a purpose-built building to house a mix room in Islington, London, with completion of the room and commencement of operations starting in September of that year. In the same year, he began working on a production project in collaboration with Korean-born, New York singer Coco Kim, featuring mostly darker electronic and lo-fi hip-hop music and under the name Chicky & Coco, culminating in the release of their album "Galetea" and, 18 months later, a two and a half hour re-scoring of music to the film 2001 : A Space Odyssey, a sampling of which was released on Bandcamp entitled "2001.1 Selected Works".

From 2016 to the present, Reeves has toured extensively as front-of-house engineer for Howard Jones and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, recording and mixing for many studio sessions, composing for film, television, and games, all the while continuing to release material under the Chicky & Coco moniker.

As of 2020, due to lockdown restrictions in the world and its dampening effect on touring, Chicky & Coco began a new project with a number of other UK-based producers featuring the continued lo-fi hip-hop and electronic sound the group is known for, but with the addition of live orchestration, choral groups, and field recordings.