I’ve put together a little album of music I recorded earlier on in my PhD when I was experimenting with using my modular to control and sequence a Waldorf Blofeld synthesiser via MIDI. The recordings are all edits from longer improvisations and tend towards fairly abstract and sometimes disastrous outcomes.
The release is also available as a tape - high bias real-time recorded 25 min per side cassette. Edition of 20
I have a releaseTransductions coming out on June 5th with Room40. The album was recorded using a Diskclavier, an acoustic piano that can be controlled by an external MIDI source. In this case, a modular synthesiser is producing the MIDI data through an improvised performance of a generative patch design. Transductions is an attempt to reduce some of my approaches to electronic music down to a simpler form, retaining the structures and systems but swapping the limitless tone colours of a synthesiser for the timbre range of an acoustic piano.
My own interest in electronic music has often focused upon dynamic, complex and often noisy sounds made possible through synthesis, more recently focusing upon analog modular synthesisers as the source of these emissions. Through my use of modular synthesisers I have become more aware of my interest in systems that generate musical structure, especially when the line between timbre and composition structure becomes difficult to identify.
The compositions for Transductions were produced using simple analog components such as low-frequency oscillators (LFO), wavefolders, clock dividers and sample and hold circuits, interconnected to create complex dependencies and feedback loops, resulting in precarious systems that respond erratically to subtle interventions. Perhaps echoing Joel Chadabe's description of performing with his own electronic music systems as being akin to 'sailing a boat on a windy day and through stormy seas'. (The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music).
The title Transductions and the various track names refer to a shift in energetic form, from electric to kinetic through the Diskclaviers solenoid, from kinetic to sound vibration, from a vibrating car to vibrating body as I dose with my cheekbone against the passenger window during a long road trip. I have worked almost exclusively with electronic sound for so long; hearing and seeing the piano's physical body shake made me appreciate anew the complexity of the real world.
Tranductions can be preordered here.
Photo: Roberto Laneri.
In late 2019 I was lucky to have the opportunity to sit down and chat with Warren Burt at Brunetti’s in Carlton (Melbourne). Warren has made incredible contributions to electronic music, in both the US and Australia for several decades now as a artist, teacher, writer, instrument designer and organiser.
Warren managed to cover a lot of territory (some of it in one breath!) including his experiences as a student and teacher at Albany, UC San Diego, Latrobe Uni, Clifton Hill Music Center and now Box Hill Institute, some of his ideas around electronic music composition, analog systems, improvisation, and instrument design, and association and encounters with a range of other well known electronic music pioneers including Serge Tcherepnin, Pauline Oliveros, Rich Gold, and Randy Cohen as well as some of Warren’s projects like Plastic Platypus and the Aardvarks IV instrument.
You can find out more about Warren at his website.
If you are interested in knowing more about Australian electronic music history Warren wrote an excellent paper on live electronics in Australia back in 1991.
Warren has also kindly allowed me to share one of his early pieces created with his Aardvarks IV instrument.
All Hell Broke Loose One Sunday Afternoon when the Checker Demon and His Buddies Hung Out At Dinty Moore’s Saloon. Warren Burt 1972
For the past 4 years I have been working with Ben Byrne on a something that started a an improvised noise project Nadir, over that time we've played a bunch of gigs and released a few short EPs. The project has shofted a great deal since it begun - its still noisey and it is essentially improvised but the process is very generative and we've found a sound that I think is quite distinct from what is normally called noise music.
Have a listen and pick up a copy here.
I had the privilege of performing in a duo with Heddy Boubaker (France) for The Now Now in January this year. We were pretty happy with the outcome and have put the recording up on Soundcloud.
Live recording at Now NOW 2015, recording by Jon Hunter
On the weekend I headed along to Cemeta13 and arts festival held in Kandos (western NSW) and performed at the opening party at the Railway Hotel. Here is a recording of the performance:
