Ambiences from Éire

Another project that was released recently is Ambiences from Éire. This collaborative album of electronic ambience fused with acoustic Irish music was an absolute pleasure to be a part of. The project was the brainchild of producer Lister Rossel of West One Music Group in London, who commissioned me to participate as a composer along with Niamh Nolan, and Sean T. Ahern. We began working together in late 2025 and wrapped up our composing duties last April. Most of the collaboration was remote, but I added some piano parts during a trip to Sean’s studio in London last May, and Sean oversaw the recording of Niamh’s voice and several Irish instrumentalists (including himself). The project couldn’t exist without Niamh’s stunning vocal work at the heart of the album.

I could write so much about the process of making this music. For now I’ll say that all of the collaborators were a joy to work with, and it was a thrill to hear one of my compositions realised as a string quartet. Counterintuitive to my own understanding of myself as an artist, I really enjoyed composing within the parameters given to us by the producers and staff at West One. When there were notes or suggestions about a particular piece I really enjoyed the challenge of meeting those requests while sustaining the original intent. I look forward to doing more work of this kind (until we’re all replaced by AI).

This entry was posted in Sound Design by John CS Keston. Bookmark the permalink.

About John CS Keston

John CS Keston is an award winning transdisciplinary artist reimagining how music, video art, and computer science intersect. His work both questions and embraces his backgrounds in music technology, software development, and improvisation leading him toward unconventional compositions that convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. Performers are empowered to use their phonomnesis, or sonic imaginations, while contributing to his collaborative work. Originally from the United Kingdom, John currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he is a professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of St Thomas. He founded the sound design resource, AudioCookbook.org, where you will find articles and documentation about his projects and research.

John has spoken, performed, or exhibited original work at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2022), the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2022), the International Digital Media Arts Conference (iDMAa 2022), International Sound in Science Technology and the Arts (ISSTA 2017-2019), Northern Spark (2011-2017), the Weisman Art Museum, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Institute of Art, the Eyeo Festival, INST-INT, Echofluxx (Prague), and Moogfest. He produced and performed in the piece Instant Cinema: Teleportation Platform X, a featured project at Northern Spark 2013. He composed and performed the music for In Habit: Life in Patterns (2012) and Words to Dead Lips (2011) in collaboration with the dance company Aniccha Arts. In 2017 he was commissioned by the Walker Art Center to compose music for former Merce Cunningham dancers during the Common Time performance series. His music appears in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) and he composed the music for the short Familiar Pavement (2015). He has appeared on more than a dozen albums including two solo albums on UnearthedMusic.com.

Leave a Reply