Eyeo Festival June 27-29, 2011

Posted on January 26, 2011 by John CS Keston

In late June 2011 I will be presenting the GMS and Grain Machine, as well as performing with Ostracon, at the Eyeo Festival. Eyeo is a new festival organized by Dave Schroeder, that includes an ever expanding and incredible list of speakers. I am honored, humbled and invigorated to be participating in this event. Here’s a blurb from the festival website:

“eyeo brings together the most creative coders, designers and artists working today, and shaping tomorrow – expect an amazing three days of talks, labs, demos & events fueled by the people and tools that are transforming digital culture.”

Just to give you an idea of the scope of the presenters, both Ben Fry and Casey Reas, founders of the Processing.org language (that I used to build the GMS) are on the roster among many other brilliant talents. Checkout the website for a list of the presenters so far. Here’s a track from the upcoming Ostracon album to illustrate what we’re producing.

Entropy Procedure by Ostracon

DGK Rehearsal Segment

Posted on January 25, 2011 by John CS Keston

During a rehearsal with DGK tonight for our upcoming show this Friday at the Turf Club, I put the Roland Juno-106 on top of the Rhodes and ran them both through my Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man delay. I had the Sony PCM-D50 setup to capture the session with TIm Glenn on drums and Jon Davis on bass. It was a fun rehearsal. I’m looking forward to our show. Here a segment from the recording where I was playing chords on the Juno through the Memory Man.

DGK Rehearsal Segment

Upcoming DGK and Ostraka Performances

Posted on January 22, 2011 by John CS Keston

Here’s a list of upcoming performances from my trio, DGK (Davis, Glenn, Keston) and my solo project, Ostraka. First up is DGK at the Turf Club in St. Paul, Minnesota on Friday, January 28, 2011. Also on the bill is Dosh and H.U.N.X. Doors at 9:00pm. $5.00. Main stage. Next up is Ostraka at Nick & Eddie Thursday Funhouse on February 3, 2011. Doors at 10:00pm. Located in the back bar. Free entry. Thirdly we have DGK at the Red Stag Supper Club on Monday, February 21, 2011. Doors are at 9:00pm. No cover.

Korg Monotron Clip from Live Set

Posted on January 20, 2011 by John CS Keston

Here’s a sound I coaxed out of the Korg Monotron during my live set at Nick and Eddie Thursday Funhouse that I mentioned in the last article. One again, you can download the entire set here. In my previous demos of the Monotron I used no processing, so this time I decided to present it exactly as it was performed in the live set, through stereo delay and reverb sends. The sound of this minute instrument never ceases to amaze me.

Monotron Clip

Example of Posc from Live Performance

Posted on January 16, 2011 by John CS Keston

I extracted this recording of the Posc from a performance of Words to Dead Lips at Intermedia Arts last November. I left the processing on it that I had used during the performance. At some point I’m going to acoustically record one of the “noise shields” that built for the dancers to use in the piece as a comparison. The “noise shields” have a distinctive sound tailored by the amplification, speaker, and the body of the instrument that is quite different for the direct sound below.

Words to Dead Lips Posc Example