Brian McBride (born Brian Edward McBride in Irving, TX, in 1970; died August 2023) was an American ambient musician remembered as one half of the duo Stars of the Lid. He released two solo albums, "When The Detail Lost Its Freedom" (2005) and "The Effective Disconnect" (2010). In 2009 he teamed up with musician Kenneth James Gibson to form the duo Bell Gardens.

McBride moved to Austin, Texas, in 1990 where he met Adam Wiltzie, forming Stars of the Lid in the early 1990s. McBride had a radio show on the local college station. As he described it to The Weekly Dig in Fall 2002, "I used to record any sound that caught my ear. The sounds of in-need-of-repair ice cream dispensers in large cafeteria rooms would eventually be mixed with other found sounds on a four-track recorder for radio broadcast." This use of sound as a raw material and source of information was a continuing theme in McBride's musical endeavors. With Stars of the Lid, McBride recorded a number of albums and toured North America and Europe from the mid-90s.

Mcbride also contributed to two albums by the hushed pop band The Pilot Ships.

He later lived in Los Angeles with his cats ("Ead" and "Nadine", presumably named after the characters in Twin Peaks, of which he is a fan). He was an active member of the policy debate community.

In 2009 he teamed up with musician Kenneth James Gibson to form the band Bell Gardens. Their first EP Hangups Need Company was released on their own imprint Failed Better in 2010. Southern Records released their first LP Full Sundown Assembly in 2012 and Rocket Girl released their second LP Slow Dawns For Lost Conclusions in 2014.

His debut solo album, When the Detail Lost its Freedom was recorded mainly on an ASR X keyboard sampler. The instruments recorded were guitar, piano, vocals, harmonica, trumpet and strings. There were no synthesizers or keyboards used in the creation of the album. There's a lot of sampling in the sense of capturing a tone, isolating its tuning, and playing it on the keys of a piano. The album was recorded somewhere in between Los Angeles and Chicago, always at home, in random moments of duress over the last four years. The final mix was arranged from December 2004 to January 2005.
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