Coloring Time at the Deepwinter Bonfire

Posted on February 29, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

Recently I participated in a performance with a collective of musicians called Coloring Time. The show took place on Saturday, January 28, 2012 at the History Theatre in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota and was sponsored by McNally Smith School of Music. Performers include: Crescent Moon (Kill the Vultures), Kristoff Krane, Chastity Brown, Aby Wolf, Peter Pisano (Peterwolfcrier), Joe Horton (No Bird Sing), Michelle Kinney and Melissa Mathews (Mississippi Peace), Chris Thomson, Bobby Mullrennan (No Bird Sing), Casey O’Brien (Face Candy), John Keston (Ostracon, DKO), Graham O’Brien (Mississippi Peace, No Bird Sing), and many others. This video is from the last six minutes of the performance. Apparently there’s much more to come. If it’s as lovely as this segment I will share it here when it shows up. Enjoy!

Eyeo: Using Digital Imagery to Generate Sound

Posted on February 27, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

The first ever Eyeo Festival was last June and the second iteration looks to be just as amazing as the last. Here’s a video of a presentation that I gave at Eyeo last year on using digital imagery to generate sound. I also have the HTML5 slideshow available (use the left and right arrow keys to navigate). A big thanks goes out to Dave Schroeder for creating Eyeo and sharing these videos.

DKO at Acadia

Posted on February 20, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

My trio, DKO performs Tuesday, February 21st @ Acadia Cafe. 9pm/all ages/free. More for information about DKO visit AudioCookBook posts tagged with DKO, or checkout our tumblr page.

Midnight Playground

Posted on January 22, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

Midnight Playground is an interactive, kinetic, installation by Peng Wu, Jack Pavlik, John Keston, and Analaura Juarez. Peng initiated and directed the idea, Jack built the jump rope robot, and Annalaura helped refine the concept and promote the piece. My role was to produce the music and track it to the still images that Peng had selected. I ended up making a one hour video with thirty minutes of the image from the moon followed by a four second transition into another thirty minutes with an image of Mars. To produce the sound I gave Peng a list of audio excerpts that had all been previously posted on AudioCookbook in One Synthesizer Sound Every Day. He picked the two that he thought would work the best and I went back to my original recordings and processed them specifically for the piece by adding some reverb and delay to enhance the spacial properties of the music. The piece will be on display in Gallery 148 at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design through January 29, 2012.

DKO Performance Tonight at Acadia

Posted on January 6, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

Tonight (Friday, January 6, 2012) DKO is performing our first concert of the year. We’ll play two sets at Acadia, 329 Cedar Ave S., Minneapolis, MN 55454. This little gem of a venue has one of the best beer selections in the city. There’s no cover and all ages are welcome. Here’s another segment from our December 16, 2011 performance at the Kitty Cat Klub. This one starts out with some Pro-One arpeggios then moves into Rhodes playing with a solo at 4:43 and then a Pro-One solo at about 9:25.