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.
This large clay ocarina was a gift from my friend Jerry who purchased it from his friend Barry who used to craft them and then sell them at Camden Market in London. This recording is from 2003 and was used on an experimental improvisational piece I worked on with Dr. David Means during my Music Technology studies at Metropolitan State University. I originally ran the sound through all sorts of processing including delay and reverb, but here I’ll include it in its original state. You can still hear some room ambiance, and a curious high frequency overtone created by the hardened clay resonating.
Keston and Westdal’s latest release, One Day to Save All Life (ODTSAL), has been reviewed in Signal to Noise, The Journal of Improvised and Experimental Music. This review from “The most respected journal of experimental, improvised and otherwise interesting music” (DustyGroove.com) is the highest praise yet for the release. Please visit Unearthed Music to read the review.
Unearthed Music makes full-length 128kbps MP3 previews of every track in their catalog available on their website. So, in light of the review I am including one of my favorite tracks from ODTSAL, Electric Sheep, as today’s sound on AudioCookbook.org. If you like what you hear consider purchasing music from our independent and artist owned label. Why? Because without your support we and others like us would not be able to continue providing you with the music you love. And what kind of world would that be?
Today, freesound.org approved the ACB August 2008 sample pack. This sample pack is comprised of sounds found on AudioCookbook.org that were posted during the month of August, 2008 in the Share Remix Adapt category. My goal is to package these sample packs on freesound.org once a month so you have access to high quality versions of the sounds on ACB.
Each sound is uncompressed and available through freesound.org in it’s original .wav format for free download and use in non-commercial works (I will most often grant permission for commercial use if you contact me in advance). If you make use of these samples please consider donating to ACB using the paypal link in the sidebar.
The sample I included in the Piano Mallet Loop has been used in three pieces that I know of so far and are all linked somewhere on AudioCookbook.org. So tonight I am presenting another example of using a mallet to produce sound with a piano instead of using the traditional keyboard that we are familiar with. The mallet I used to get this sound was the steel handle of a socket wrench with some thick rubber bands wrapped around one end. I bounced the rubber bands of a few of the strings in the lower register and got this simple bass melody.
Piano Mallet Bass
Here are the pieces that used Piano Mallet Loop. All of them are very nice. A big thanks to tacitdynamite, Fourstones, and small.cat for sharing their compositions.
Once again, today I set out to experiment for a few minutes and make a new sound using some processing I had yet to use. But like it is prone to happen, as I tweaked and played around a musical piece started to emerge. I sequenced a series of vocal samples then applied a real-time randomizer to the sequence. Second in the chain was a vocoder plugin programmed to produce a Csus chord, followed by a stereo delay. Underneath it I layered a low melody and automated the waveform setting for one of the oscillators to get a digitized static effect. I titled it Cuba, Illinois after a town of about fifteen hundred people in Illinois called Cuba. I’ve never been there, but I like the juxtaposition of the town and state names.
This large clay ocarina was a gift from my friend Jerry who purchased it from his friend Barry who used to craft them and then sell them at Camden Market in London. This recording is from 2003 and was used on an experimental improvisational piece I worked on with Dr. David Means during my Music Technology studies at Metropolitan State University. I originally ran the sound through all sorts of processing including delay and reverb, but here I’ll include it in its original state. You can still hear some room ambiance, and a curious high frequency overtone created by the hardened clay resonating. 
The sample I included in the 
Once again, today I set out to experiment for a few minutes and make a new sound using some processing I had yet to use. But like it is prone to happen, as I tweaked and played around a musical piece started to emerge. I sequenced a series of vocal samples then applied a real-time randomizer to the sequence. Second in the chain was a vocoder plugin programmed to produce a Csus chord, followed by a stereo delay. Underneath it I layered a low melody and automated the waveform setting for one of the oscillators to get a digitized static effect. I titled it Cuba, Illinois after a town of about fifteen hundred people in Illinois called Cuba. I’ve never been there, but I like the juxtaposition of the town and state names.