ImProv
My use of electronics with my electric upright bass is an attempt to mine new ideas from old technologies in this case the analog MS-10. Time moves so fast that we tend to discard a technology before we can fully explore it. Since my electric upright is analog it would follow that my sound processing would also be analog synthesis. Since the upright electric bass is also a machine there is already an immersion into the electronic machine world. A dichotomy develops because the bass does not create its own sound, I have to play it, the Ms-10 is another story.In my improvisations with real time electronics-since I am in the moment I don’t think about anything-it just happens. That said, as an after thought, I realize that I either ignore, follow, comment, become one, or struggle against the electronic sounds. My performances can have the effect of projecting a trance like state to the audience.
Man and Machine
An evening of experimental music and free jazz with Philip Fried, a composer and experimental improviser on the string bass who combines free jazz, serial music, atonal music, and electronica. Humanity has always found the machine to be a benefit to society. Yet on closer look we see that this relationship is fraught with passions and ambiguity. Machines can save lives or end them, build or destroy. Every machine use has its supporters and detractors. Every benefit its downside. Machines are not human but when we say “inhuman” we actually mean people taking on the aspects of a machine. Being emotionless. Then again machines are merely a reflection of their operators and programmers. My performance is an aural presentation of these ambiguities with an elegant lyricism.