Audiovisual Collaboration: Chris LeBLanc & Shawna Lee, Part 2

Posted on October 12, 2023 by John C.S. Keston

Chris and Shawna produced live visuals using their integrated, modular video synthesis systems as I performed. This as yet untitled piece is driven by morphing drums and sequences on the Dirtywave M8 tracker. I also improvised parts on the Osmose Expressive E and the Numa X Piano GT.

This is the second in a series of live audiovisual collaborations with Chris LeBlanc and Shawna Lee. The performance was captured at at the Lakely in the Oxbow Hotel, Eau Claire, Wisconsin on September 30, 2023. Chris and Shawna produced live visuals using their integrated, modular video synthesis systems as I performed. This as yet untitled piece is driven by morphing drums and sequences on the Dirtywave M8 tracker. I also improvised parts on the Numa X Piano GT and the Osmose Expressive E.

Please take a look at Chris’ (@blindprophet) and Shawna’s (@iamadot) Instagram feeds to see more of their work.

ACB Live Volume 4 Stream Archive

Posted on July 28, 2023 by John C.S. Keston

If you missed the Twitch.TV/AudioCookbook stream from May 2023 featuring Cody McKinney the entire performance is archived in four parts on YouTube. Unfortunately my GoPro Hero8 failed to connect as a webcam, so I ended up using the camera on my MacBook Pro. My Hero8 turned out to be defective and GoPro is kindly sending me a Hero9 to replace it.

Although the video quality is not what I’d like I recorded the audio in multitrack then, mixed it, and applied some rudimentary mastering. As a result the archived videos sound better than the original stream. Enjoy!

Sample Glitching on the Dirtywave M8

Posted on March 10, 2023 by John C.S. Keston

The Dirtywave M8 has been consistently sneaking its way into my music workflow these days. One of the things I really enjoy doing with it is sample glitching. There are so many generative techniques possible when it comes to the tracker and how it is integrated with the sampling instrument. Things like chance, playback rate, direction, start position, randomization and anything else that makes the sample instrument get weird are really interesting and effective approaches to sample manipulation.

In this clip I have several rows of chains which include instruments, each with different samples and ways that the samples are being juggled and twisted. This involves chance and randomness applied to everything from delaying the note to reversing the playback direction. All the samples are sounds that I either recorded or made using synthesis or other sound design techniques. The range of possible textures is remarkable even without a wide range of samples to work with.

SYNTAX at the Performing Media Festival 2023

Posted on March 5, 2023 by John C.S. Keston

Keston and Honick performing SYNTAX at iDMAa 2022 Weird Media

I’m pleased to share that I will be giving a concert of the piece SYNTAX in collaboration with Mike Hodnick AKA Kindohm at the Performing Media Festival on March 10 at LangLab in South Bend, Indiana. This video excerpt of the piece was presented at NIME 2022, and we performed the piece in-person at ICMC 2022 in Limerick last July, and at iDMAa 2022 Weird Media last June.

SYNTAX is an exercise in programming computers to program ourselves. Mike and I each composed four movements for a total of eight generative, animated, graphic scores. We follow the unpredictable yet familiar visuals making each performance similar, but distinct from the next.

The piece questions technological idealism in an age of ecological disruption and data-driven exploitation. By deliberately coding and submitting to an “inversion of control” we’re evoke the warnings of media theorists like Douglas Rushkoff, that we risk a future wherein our behavior might be irreversibly dictated by the algorithms in the software we use instead of by our own volition. If you can’t catch our performance in South Bend, we’ll be performing it again in Kalamazoo, MI the next day at the Dormouse Theatre.

Mothership Solo Album Release

Posted on November 30, 2021 by John C.S. Keston

<a target="_blank" href="https://aethersound.bandcamp.com/album/mothership" >Mothership by John C.S. Keston</a>

On Black Friday, 2021 I released a solo album of 20 tracks, all recorded as a response to the despair of isolation and the horrors of… space. Yes, they were also recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and although the “despair of isolation and the horrors of” the global disease were (and are) a daily realty, working on this album was a way to escape.

The music was inspired by Mothership, a sci-fi horror tabletop role playing game, from which I borrowed the title. More accurately, it was inspired by group of friends with whom I played Mothership (the game) via video chat. I started with one dark ambient piece to get us in the mood for the game, which led to another, and another until the album was complete. Mothership (the album) is available by the good graces of Æther Sound. Read on for the liner notes: Continue reading →