Unicorn Dream Attack and Ostracon at the Honey Lounge

Posted on September 10, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

On Saturday, September 11, 2010 Ostracon is performing a “send off” show for the In / Out Festival in New York. I am excited to be sharing the stage again with 8-bit maestro, Unicorn Dream Attack. Stefen Keen of UDA describes his music as follows.

The music I make is often times called “8-bit” or “chiptunes” (there are many other names but these are the most popular). There are many many ways to make this music. Some of them include using live sounds, trackers, or MIDI inputs on vintage computers (like Commodore 64), game systems (like a Gameboy or NES), old Casios/Yamahas (like vl-tone or vs-30), and circuit bent toys or non-bent toys of all kinds. check out the forums at chipmusic.org, 8bitcollective.com, and micromusic.net for more answers.

I describe it as intense, square wave, head exploding madness, not to be missed. UDA takes the stage at 7:45pm followed by my duet, Ostracon, with Graham O’Brien on drums at 8:45pm. The event takes place at the Honey Lounge, located in the basement of Ginger Hop at 205 East Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55414. The show is free if you arrive before 9:00pm.

Cappuccino Synth Video Via CDM

Posted on August 26, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

Cappuccino Synth from Gijs on Vimeo.

I first saw this on Create Digital Music a few days ago, and although I think most ACB readers keep well abreast of what’s up on CDM, I’ve watched this several times now and think it deserves a re-post here. For more about this video visit the original post.

Experimental guitarists have been doing similar things like holding power tools or more recently, mobile phones, up to their pickups to generate interesting sounds. Here’s a video I shot of Siamese Bug a duet of Tim Glenn on drums with contact mics, and Jeremy Ylvisaker on prepared guitar.

Siamese Bug Video

Ostracon at In Out Festival, September 2010

Posted on July 26, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

Ostracon Video from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.

My project Ostracon (John Keston and Graham O’Brien) has been selected to perform at the In/Out Digital Performance Festival in New York this September, 2010. The schedule hasn’t been finalized yet, but we’ll be playing either on the 17th or 18th of the month at the Tank Theater, 354 West 45th Street, New York, NY 10036. Last year’s lineup included Monome creator, tehn (Brian Crabtree), and Peter Kirn of Creative Digital Music. From the In/Out Festival website.

In/Out is an annual festival that features leading performers, developers, artists, and tinkerers of the digital design community in hopes bridging the gap between the forum based world and the stage. The festival seeks to bring digitally driven performances into the limelight with two full days of workshops and performances.

This video is a live studio piece shot by Ai student Josh Clos, and recorded at Ai Minnesota by John Keston and Graham O’Brien. It’s representative of the music that we are generating during our live performances. For more checkout the Ostracon tag here on ACB, or visit our bio on Unearthed Music.

Chromatic Textures Shown at 6X6 #5: Mystery

Posted on July 8, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

On Wednesday, July 7, 2010 my piece Chromatic Textures was shown at 6X6 #5: Mystery, an exhibition at Ciné Lab in Athens, Georgia. My work was accepted along with five other artists, “…including Denton Crawford’s eyeballs, Aaron Oldenburg’s plunge into asphyxia, and a performance streamed live over the Internet from California.” Here’s my abstract for Chromatic Textures.

Chromatic Textures is a study on the synesthetic nature of our senses of sound and sight. Video input is used to produce generative musical phrases. The visual media is analyzed by the GMS (Gestural Music Sequencer) to create the musical forms in real-time. The software includes adjustable probability distribution maps for the scale and rhythm. Adjusting these settings allows familiar structures to emerge. The settings chosen for this piece cause notes within a particular scale to play more frequently, however, it is still possible for any note within the twelve-tone chromatic system to occur. As a result, dissonant or blue notes can be heard at rare instances throughout the piece.
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Experimental Music Mondays Part 5

Posted on June 26, 2010 by John C.S. Keston

The June 28 installment of Experimental Music Mondays starts out with music from EMM regular Terr the Om (Nathan Brende). Terr the Om combines circuit bending and laptop mangling to create glistening, quirky, and bit-crushed on-the-spot compositions with a break beat sensibility.

Next is Siamese Bug made up of drummer TIm Glenn and guitarist Jeremy Ylversaker. Tim Glenn (HeatdeatH, Squidfist) and Jeremy Ylvisaker (Alpha Consumer, Dosh, Andrew Bird) have played together in Fog and Ourmine, Individually they’ve performed everywhere from Sydney Opera Hall to your nightmares. Expect to hear the sounds from contact mics on torn cymbals and vintage transistor interference through guitar pickups and pedal arrays.

The final act of the evening is by noise masters Juhyo. “JUHYO is a collaboration between Minneapolis artists Brian Kopish (Surrounded) and Bill Henson (Oblong Box). Together they create horrifyingly beautiful soundscapes of pure noise. Armed with an array of homemade oscillators, delay units, resonators, samplers and sheer volume; aimed with composition, discipline and conscious, focused intent; JUHYO exists as an entity of creative expression, freedom, subtle beauty and eardrum bleeding power.”