Propellerheads is a British big beat music band from Bath made up of electronic producers Will White and Alex Gifford. The term “Propellerhead” is californian slang for a computer nerd, and when Gifford and White heard a friend from California drop this into conversation, they thought it the perfect name for their band.

Their first release was an EP named Dive!, published in 1996 through independent label wall of sound. They gained fame the next year by providing a remix for Bond composer David Arnold’s Bond tribute album Shaken & Stirred covering John Barry’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the theme song to the sixth James Bond film, re-orchestrated by Arnold. The single “History Repeating” followed, a collaboration with jazz diva Shirley Bassey, fusing big beat with jazz.

Their only album to date is Decksandrumsandrockandroll, released in 1998 by Wall of Sound in the UK and Europe and DreamWorks in the US and Japan. The Dreamworks versions include collaborations with hip hop veterans De La Soul and Jungle Brothers, and the Japanese version is a sought-after 2 Disc Special Edition including some of their earlier singles. A track from the album, “Spybreak!”, became widely known after its use in the famous lobby scene in The Matrix.