Mad Scientists of Music Part 4

admin March 16, 2015

Episode 4 – ‘Taking Toys Apart’

Teaser – Andrew Edgar takes us on a tour of the A4 Arts Collective.

Part 1 – Ed Devane talks about the relationship between self taught musicians, hackers, artists and the “new music” (contemporary classical music) establishment.

Part 2 – The Dublin Laptop Orchestra introduce us to their own unique take on electronic music. Performing using digital setups with midi controllers, the group focus on making a performance which combines physical movement with electronic collaboration.

Part 3 – Stewart Geelon of Luxury Mollusc & Primal Barber Quartet introduces us to the Dublin ‘harsh noise’ scene, where electronic improvisers taking their queue from industrial and early 20th century avant-garde music, create challenging dark soundscapes from found objects.

Part 4 – Artist Aine Belton, talks about combining language and musical sound to enhance the impact of poetry and creative writing. Aine, a trained musician and visual artist, became fascinated with combining music, language and visual media. This work has resulted in a practice which includes instrument making and zine culture alike.

Interjection – Ed Devane talks about sound as art, the different purposes behind experimental music, improvisation from a visual art / sound art background, and the creation of work that elicits a ‘sense of awe’.

Part 5 – Dublin postpunk-neokraut-nowave-neopsychadelic multi-instrumentalist improvisers No!, discuss collaborations at their open door Concrete Soup Experimental Music Afternoons in Twisted Pepper.

About the Series

BAI logo mark colourMad Scientists of Music is a six part, BAI funded documentary series on Near FM. The show explores the world of Circuit Bending, Chip Tune, and Electroacoustic music in Ireland. Low cost technology, recycled instruments and a new attitude to tinkering embodied by the ‘maker movement’ are helping to reinvent music. A new generation of Irish musicians raised around computers, the internet and video gaming, see noise as something to be hacked, taken apart, and reconstructed. These artists build their own instruments, whether by recycling toy keyboards, modifying video game consoles, or attaching electronics to traditional stringed instruments. They often share their music online for free, and in doing so challenge our ideas about copyright and ownership. Their playful attitude to technology finds new uses for obsolete devices and brings the collaboration of musicianship to engineering and the arts.

Tracks Used:

Ed Devane – Arcane
Ed Devane – Feedback
Dublin Laptop Orchestra – Wakey Wakey
Dublin Laptop Orchestra – Beater
Dublin Laptop Orchestra Live recording (Rehearsal, Trinity College School of Music)
The Primal Barber Trio – Live at Hunters Moon (curtesy of Deserted Village)
Luxury Mollusc – Live recording
Beets like – by Becca De La Rosa read by ESC Zine
Slinky – by Jessica Maybury via Craiglist read by ESC Zine
‘The Spoonwriter’ by Áine Belton and Sharon White (2010)
No! – Live recording (Twisted Pepper, Concrete Soup Music Afternoons)