Ostraka with Dial System and Keston and Westdal Performances

Posted on September 16, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

I have a few performances coming up. One at the end of the month and two at the begining of October. Here’s the official word from Unearthed Music on the upcoming events:

Unearthed Music has a few upcoming events we thought you’d like to know about. On Monday, September 28, John Keston is celebrating his birthday by performing with Graham O’Brien on drums as, Ostraka with Dial System at the Kitty Cat Klub. The duet combines the stochastic, angular melodies produced by Keston’s custom music software with live drumming. Gestural video input is simultaneously projected onto a screen and processed into musical phrases. The results are live looped and molded into spontaneous compositions. Expert, veteran turntablist, DJ Zenrock, completes the bill.

Keston and Wedstdal with Graham O’Brien on drums are performing back-to-back events at Sauce with House Luna and Honey Stick (Thursday, October 1, 2009, $5.00) and the Dakota late night (Friday, October 2, 2009, $5.00). Sauce is located in Uptown on Lake and Lyndale and the Dakota is on Nicolet Mall in Downtown Minneapolis.

More Information:
http://www.unearthedmusic.com/?source=shows.php

Recent Releases on UEM:
http://www.unearthedmusic.com/?source=releases.php

Dreams in High Fidelity

Posted on September 1, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

esheep_grab2 If you’re not familiar with the Electric Sheep screen saver by Scott Draves I highly recommend that you check it out. His software renders beautiful sequences of animated fractal geometry. As a screen saver user, you can vote on your favorite animations, causing them to “live” longer and get added to a “gene pool” to “breed” with others using genetic algorithms. What does this have to do with sound? Well, it looks as though a musical performance is scheduled to premiere in Brooklyn, New York on September 3rd, 2009, that combines Scott’s amazing visuals with live musical accompaniment. Details about the performance can be found here:

http://issueprojectroom.org/2009/08/10/scott-draves-dreams-in-high-fidelity/

“Sound is Kind of Touch at a Distance”

Posted on August 26, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

I recently came across an episode of WNYC‘s Radio Lab with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich delving into the making of their acclaimed program that melds science, philosophy, and psychology into a sonic mash-up of mind expanding fun. Somehow, even as an avid listener, this podcast “short” from November, 2007 slipped through the cracks for me until now.

One of the things that attracted me to Radio Lab in the first place was the emphasis on sound design. In every episode creative, and experimental audio production techniques are used to build soundscapes that color and pace the interviews and conversations in a musical fashion, transfixing the ear as the stories unfold.

In Making Radio Lab Jad and Robert discuss their approach to sound design on the program with some excellent examples of spoken phrases from interviews with and without the audio manipulation applied. The phrase “Sound is Kind of Touch at a Distance”, coined by Dr. Anne Fernald on the Musical Language episode, occurs as a theme throughout the program illustrating the importance of sound design to the production of the show.

Making Radio Lab

Beta Release of the GMS this September

Posted on August 25, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

I have decided to release beta version binaries of the GMS for both Mac and Windows sometime next month. There a few bugs I have yet to solve, like the application freezing if you choose the video device more than once. I’ll be including a readme that lists the known issues along with the application files.

One of the reasons for doing this is to get some feedback on the tool, and find out if anyone is interested in continuing development on the project as Open Source. There are some pretty tricky issues with Processing and video that perhaps a more advanced developer than me might be able to optimize easily enough. I am interested in moving on to some other projects, and am fairly satisfied with how the GMS works for my own purposes at the moment.

If anyone is interested in experimenting with this tool (I know of a few interested parties so far), let me know in a comment and I’ll gauge my efforts on getting a beta out soon or over a more extended time period based on your feedback.

GMS Leftovers

Posted on August 20, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

San Francisco Mask Shop If you have been wondering why ACB is a little bit on the slow side lately, it’s because I have been quite busy doing other things, like my night class at CNMAT and releasing my solo album, Precambrian Resonance. So, after presenting 365 sounds in 365 days, I’ve been having a bit of a rest.

But now I am ready to dive into some new projects, including my duet with Graham O’Brien (drums) that we’re calling Ostraka with Dial System. We recently performed at a club in Minneapolis, but I neglected to record the show. However, I saved my document with the GMS clips I had captured. Here’s a short mix of a few of the remnants from the performance, unfortunately lacking the drums.

GMS Leftovers