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.

Full Length Original Version of Onikoroshi

Posted on January 12, 2009 by John CS Keston

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.

Onikoroshi
from Super Structure Baby (2004, Unearthed Music).

Chopped Up Clavinet Through Wah Wah

Posted on January 11, 2009 by John CS Keston

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

Robot Clavinet

Froth and Bothered

Posted on January 10, 2009 by John CS Keston

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.

Maxi-Korg Experiment

Laundry Day

Posted on January 9, 2009 by John CS Keston

From the content of my last entry you can probably guess why I am slightly behind on my On Sound Every Day project. Fortunately I have sounds for the missing days and will be adding them soon.

A combination of time spent during the holidays on family visits, parties, keyboard desk building, and studio reorganization has left me trying to catch up on several things including a massive pile of laundry. This gave me an excuse to record my old squeaky clothes drier.

Squeaky Drier

Segment of Piano Piece with Rhodes

Posted on January 8, 2009 by John CS Keston

With help from my father who was visiting recently, I have built a new desk for my studio. The idea I had was to build a desk wide enough to build a keyboard drawer underneath. What I came up with was a simple design using three quarter inch plywood, quarter inch ply for the backing and one by three pine for a brace and attachments for the eighteen inch ball bearing drawer runners. The keyboard is a CME UF7 semi-weighted controller.

It has made a huge difference in the ergonomics of my studio to have this controller readily available without having to have it take up extra space on a stand. Here’s a segment from a piece I wrote soon after putting the studio back together with the new desk. I’m using the CME to control my the grand piano patch on my Yamaha A3000 rack mount sampler. The Rhodes is my 1976 suitcase model that does not leave the studio.