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.
I came across this sample from a performance on July 13, 2006. It is a delayed synthesizer line that I played and captured as a clip in Ableton Live during the show. What’s interesting to me about this clip is the obvious modulation in pitch on the delay trails. This is not something that I programmed into the patch and I suspect is actually caused by a bug in the Korg MS2000. It’s possible to recreate this bug by enabling tempo delay then sending external sync to the instrument. I rarely experience this glitch anymore because rather than using the delay on the Korg, I usually run it through tempo delay in the software. However, I kind of like the ghostly quality it creates in this short passage.
Today has been a busy day on ACB with new contributor Tom Player’s lovely yacht recording and Nils Westdal’s Christopher Willits remix. So, all I have for you is a quick sound to fulfill my One Sound Every Day duties. I created this diffused noise montage by pitching down a metal wheel scraping sound and then running it through a very long reverb.
In order to put the last entry in context I thought I would share the original track that the Clavinet recording was made in. As I said before it is called Onikoroshi and it is the ninth piece on the album Super Structure Baby, re-released electronically in 2004 on Unearthed Music. I think the piece dates back to 1998 or 1999. Perhaps Saronni (Nils Westdal) will have some input on that.
I just recycled this ten year old recording made on my Hohner E7 Clavinet. It was originally a track in the piece Onikoroshi on the album Super Structure Baby (2004, Unearthed Music), which I think was recorded in 1999.
Unfortunately the rubber hammers on my clav have deteriorated so it is no longer playable. I have been meaning to restore it when I can find the time, but it is apparently a time consuming and arduous undertaking as you can tell from this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZXYU48P90Q
I recently recorded loads of bits and pieces of melodies and bass lines with my Maxi-Korg. This is an example of one of the ways I have attempted to assemble the parts into a musical form.
In this piece I have layered a synth bass line with dry analog drums. Soon afterward a duo-phonic melody is introduced running through reverberation. I really fancy the gritty texture of the Maxi-Korg bass.
I came across this sample from a performance on July 13, 2006. It is a delayed synthesizer line that I played and captured as a clip in Ableton Live during the show. What’s interesting to me about this clip is the obvious modulation in pitch on the delay trails. This is not something that I programmed into the patch and I suspect is actually caused by a bug in the Korg MS2000. It’s possible to recreate this bug by enabling tempo delay then sending external sync to the instrument. I rarely experience this glitch anymore because rather than using the delay on the Korg, I usually run it through tempo delay in the software. However, I kind of like the ghostly quality it creates in this short passage.
Today has been a busy day on ACB with new contributor Tom Player’s lovely yacht recording and Nils Westdal’s Christopher Willits remix. So, all I have for you is a quick sound to fulfill my 
I just recycled this ten year old recording made on my Hohner E7 Clavinet. It was originally a track in the piece Onikoroshi on the album 
I recently recorded loads of bits and pieces of melodies and bass lines with my Maxi-Korg. This is an example of one of the ways I have attempted to assemble the parts into a musical form.