About John CS Keston
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.
While browsing ccMixter recently I came across this track called Summer Glau by John Anealio remixed by Teru that incorporates sounds from ACB including Pro-One Dub and apparently Synthesizer Fifths Drone although I couldn’t make it out in the mix. In any case, after a bit more browsing I came across another Teru mix called Cooked (mega downtempo) that uses Synthesizer Fifths Drone, Rhodes Wah Wah, Electric Razor, and Door Stop all sounds I posted on AudioCookbook.org. I must admit that it is fun to come across examples of ACB samples being used by other artists. I’ve linked the tracks below, or visit Teru’s page on ccMixter to hear what else he has on offer. You can also checkout the Audio Cookbook Sample Pool to hear how other artists are using ACB samples.
HA! I can hear some of the sounds in there, pretty awesome. I wonder if this song will ever end up on some Firefly ultra-fan site. Then ACB will be forever linked to a cult sci-fi television show. Hilarious.