For the final Sound / Simulacra of the 2019 program we presented Jesse Whitney, Wednesday, November 27, 2019. Jesse started the evening by performing a solo modular synthesizer set. Between sets Jesse repatched his setup to sample and process the signals from John C.S. Keston (Rhodes, piano, synthesizers), and Cody McKinney (bass, voice, electronics).
Sound / Simulacra featured electronic music artist Darwin Grosse on May 22, 2019. These recordings include a wonderful solo set followed by three trio pieces based on graphic scores by Darwin. These graphic scores were beautifully printed on laminated postcards as shown in the images below.
Sound / Simulacra continues with featured artist Darwin Grosse, May 22, 8:30pm at Jazz Central Studios, Minneapolis. Darwin Grosse works at the intersection of creativity, electronics and code. By applying an engineer’s toolkit to live performance, he builds complex sonic landscapes out of whole cloth. In addition to his active live media performance work, Darwin is part of the Cycling ‘74 software development team, writes for several media arts outlets and in an occasional university instructor. Oh, and he probably drinks more coffee than you. In this performance, Darwin will be working with a modular synthesizer and several computing platforms (Akai MPC Live, Monome Norns) to produce both ambient/melodic washes and noise walls.
Set 1 – Darwin Grosse (electronics)
Set 2 – Darwin Grosse (electronics), John C.S. Keston (piano, Rhodes, synthesizers), Cody McKinney (bass, electronics, voice)
This performance of IOSIS & John C.S. Keston was artfully recorded by Dave Kunath on Wednesday April 26th, 2017 at Jazz Central Studios for the Sound / Simulacra monthly series that I have been doing with Cody McKinney.
IOSIS is ritual in the shape of gnarled dronescapes, wrestled from the back of a hardware beast made of diverse synthesizers, tangled patch cables and contact microphones snaked through space-making delay and reverb units. Sometimes verging on the edge of breaking noise, sometimes swimming in lush beauty, witnessing IOSIS is a fully enveloping ceremonial experience imbued with transmutational significance. IOSIS is the musical project and collaborative platform of artist Alex Bissen.
The series explores musical improvisation as a “faithful and intentionally distorted” representational process bringing together some of the Twin Cities most unique voices to “recreate, distort, and create the hyperreal”. Thank you for listening!
