Data Cult Audio

Ipnoteca is an Italian born electronic musician base in Tokyo with a true passion for analogue gear, strange sounds, patch cables and blinking lights. During his 20+ years of personal music and sound research, Ipnoteca has discovered modular synthesizers to be the perfect instruments to create the characteristics of his sound, which ranges from IDM to ambient to glitch music. His system is composed of various modules, and is mainly comprised of modules by Intellijel Design, Make Noise, Mutable Instruments, Industrial Music Electronics (formerly Harvestman) and Noise Engineering. Since moving to Tokyo Ipnoteca has had the chance to become a regular performer, and play various shows, clubs and modular events such as Modular Cafè, Cave, TFoM 2015 and Dommune. He is currently working on various sound design projects for emerging visual artists and a cassette album that will be released in early 2018. Links: YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/user/ipnoteca SOUNDCLOUD https://soundcloud.com/ipnoteca INSTAGRAM ht

Beginning fresh somewhere late in 2016, Lithe is the pet solo project of Alice Blunt, and is a mixture of introspective feelings and fuzzy memories of transient sensations. She takes influence from bangy UK techno acts, and the hedonistic shadowy parts of the Berlin techno scene with the occasional nod to trippy ambient and IDM sonic magic. She primarily uses a mixture of modular and desktop hardware, with frequent use of sample mangling for percussion, texture and rhythm. https://soundcloud.com/iamlithe https://www.instagram.com/importjingles/ (Be sure to check out her upcoming debut EP release on VLSC)

JMoNoisey (Asheville, NC) has been recording and producing music since 2004. His background is industrial noise, techno and psychedelic trance and influences are Throbbing Gristle and all the sub-projects, but mostly Coil. He currently plays live ambient music on a variety of hardware synthesizers, samplers and eurorack modules. This music was played live on a modular synthesizer and recorded as two, one shot performances. http://www.howton.net http://www.soundcloud.com/jamiehowton

Hataken has been an electronic music producer, performer since the mid 90’s. His musical style employs ambient chilled out grooves using synthesizers to span multiple genres that create a unique style and psychedelic feeling. Hataken has performed many festivals including Boom 2012 (7 hours live show with analog vintage rigs), Ozora festival, Sonica, Sound Wave, SXSW and more. Hataken released his solo album “A Prana Planet” on Matsuri Digital Chill in Nov. 2017 Shifting from vintage analogue synth performances to modular synthesizers, Hataken has become an icon in the Japanese modular scene. In 2013 he organized the Tokyo Festival of Modular; a yearly event that showcases international modular synthesizer technology and artist performances. His goal is to foster the next generation of modular synthesizer music. Hataken has taken part in many collaborative projects. Wåveshåper was a project with Greg Hunter which produced an album and series of live performances in Europe. He is an organizer of the alter

Infideltek is the work of Daniel Miller from the suburbs of Seattle. Under this project the premise of one individual locked together in binary state with a fluid ever changing relationship with electronic instruments. In various forms of ambient or noise.  
Links: www.infideltek.bandcamp.com http://instagram.com/infideltek

DivKid is a composer, producer, sound designer and audio engineer come YouTube demonstrator. DivKid started as a composer and producer of electronic music before running into mastering for various labels and working with sound design projects for audio software and sample packs. Developing out of the initial “in the box” workflow led DivKid to work with modern desktop synths, guitar pedals and rack gear before moving through vintage keyboard synths and finally onto modular synths. Modular synths made their way into various sound design projects and composition work before an clear gap in the modular was presented that needed filling. That gap was demonstration and education around modular synths products and companies which led to the first DivKid videos on YouTube demoing euro rack modular gear. This grew and is now the main output for the “DivKid Project” demonstrating modules for the amazing community of users, designers and makers that make working with this equipment so inspirational. LINKS: http://www

Data Cult Audio 0042 - Yates Zaldevour by DC Audio

Booksy is an underground electronic music project recording in Brooklyn, NY. A native of NYC and a founding member of Fictions, in his solo work Booksy explores a sonic topology flowing between skittering nomadic techno/electro and primal drone constellations. Modular and non-modular analog and digital synths, samplers, and drum machines were assembled for these recordings, which were all conducted and recorded in live takes. Links: https://booksy.bandcamp.com/album/civilization-and-frivolity https://soundcloud.com/booksy-1 https://vlsc.bandcamp.com/album/things-we-stole

Norma Saguaro lives in Portland, Oregon where she is finishing a degree in Economics. She hosts an electronic music focused radio show called 'Beyond the Marble Palace' on Freeform Portland, 90.3 fm, and after a long sabbatical has just recently started writing music again. Her favorite things include the smell of incense, long walks in fog, fried chicken, the sound of a saxophone being played far off in the rain and her sweet dog, Lucy. You can catch her on radio show online every Saturday at 4am Pacific Standard Time (GMT-7 or GMT-8 depending on Daylight Savings Time). Links: Radio: https://www.freeformportland.org/program/?show_name=beyond-the-marble-palace Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/proximal_distal/

During the embryonic development of the modern musical synthesizer, Morton Subotnick envisioned a day in which an individual could become the audience, the director, and the performer of a musical work all at once. The belief was that a device could exist that one could explore a sonic space with in real time and move from "point to point" within this space guided by feelings, emotions, or any other perturbation of the mind. With the creation of such a device (the "synthesizer") in 1963, Subtonick's idea became reality however alternative interpretations of its utility also emerged. With time, the "synthesizer" came to predominately be an instrument with which equal tempered, melodic music was created, recorded, and distributed among the masses. A select few have, however chosen to investigate and develop the concept closer to Subotnick's original vision of the man-machine interaction. adamon is Damon Mar’s pursuit of this. adamon is Damon Mar Lawrence F**king Kansas Links: https://soundcloud.com/adamon htt

Miles Macquarrie went to college for audio engineering and has always had an interest in sound design. He also has a love for synthesizers and the music created by them. Influenced by new wave, minimal synth, electro, and ambient, he uses modular synths as a way to relax when he is not busy running his restaurant, Kimball House. Links: www.kimball-house.com

“Mountaineering is often called Alpinism, especially in European languages, which implies climbing routes with minimal equipment in high and often snow and ice-covered mountains such as the Alps, where technical difficulties frequently exceed environmental and physical challenges. A mountaineer who pursues this more technical and minimalist style of mountain climbing is sometimes called an Alpinist” J.Alpinist is the moniker of John Hornak, Canadian Producer and Mastering Engineer (Michelle Gurevich, Hermitess, Locutus). Improvised ambient dub composition mixed with precision. Employing modular hardware, software and projection mapping. The 4 part Album/EP series “Offerings” will be completed spring 2018 with the release of Offerings #4 at jalpinist.com and all major digital outlets. Look for J.Alpinist on tour in North America in 2018. Best Enjoyed Loud. "a unique sound featuring delicate layering and beautiful space-age melodies. A gorgeous compendium of illustrative sound." - Earshot Links: jalpinist.

Helvetian Waves is a side project of Andrés Fuentes, a classical–trained pianist, composer and physicist based in Zürich, whom has been commissioned on several occasions by the Mozarteum (Salzburg) to write electroacoustic music, by the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna to develop intelligent sound installations and, more recently, by the IRCAM (Paris) to research on new techniques of Deep Learning addressed to music. His oeuvre is quite versatile, including his characteristic nonlinear metric and atonal structures, as well as chromatic post-minimalism envelopes.
 Links: SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/helvetianwaves  Bandcamp https://helvetianwaves.bandcamp.com

Erin April Cooper is an experimental improvisational musician based in Portland OR. She creates her pieces using a variety of synthesizers. Her pieces are inspired by her emotions and life experiences. Links: https://soundcloud.com/rinprilooper/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_ldvGq1L8_aU5LwOJ-f_XQ

Adaptive Machines is a live performance based project from Portland, Oregon. Started by Scott Worley of Jatun in late 2013, as a way to eschew recording on the computer and get back into the world of modular synthesizers and recording live performances through analog mixers directly onto tape (reel to reel, 4 tracks, 8 tracks) with no overdubs or post production involved. On the cusp of releasing the 8th installment in his current VOLUMETRIC series, Scott shares the opening songs off of his upcoming releases, VOL X and VOL XI. He shares some words about Adaptive Machines and the VOL series: "It takes me anywhere from a day to two weeks to finish a patch on the modular. At the moment of finishing the patch it's pretty typical of me to hang out for many hours in a meditative trance, listening to the ebb & flow of interactive modules at play. It's really nice to step back and admire all the work put into what essentially is a temporary piece of art. At this point I'll spend the next couple of days learning how

Huron is the project of NYC / Pennsylvania-based musician Johnny Lancia. He’s been releasing slowly drifting sounds for over 10 years now, using modular synthesizers, obsolete samplers and tape loops to craft his blissed out drones. This piece was recorded especially for Data Cult Audio and was composed using the Tascam 424mkiii cassette four track as an instrument loaded with tape loops painstakingly created by hand. Recordings of analog synthesizers are warped and twisted with each pass of audio. Casio SK-1 was also present. Links: https://huron.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/huronmusicnyc https://www.youtube.com/user/huronmusicnyc

The Polymer Cities is the experimental project of Allan Murphy’s many musical/artistic activities which also include Own Brand (formerly Midwich Youth Club)/Pages from Ceefax/Kehrschleife. The Polymer Cities is a Psycho-Geographical exploration/representation of potential future spaces and their emotional stimuli. The aim of this piece is to reproduce an impression of the phenomena of 'Data Rot' the breakdown of digital files which sometimes results in the odd merging of files on a hard disc. creating new hybrids of information - a sort of cut-up writing for the digital realm in which a potential future might leak through. Allan has used mainly unfinished Polymer Cities pieces as the core sounds and juxtaposed/manipulated them with various experimental processes alongside freshly created musical material to represent what an album of his would sound like in the future after data rot. Links:  https://thepolymercities.bandcamp.com/

John Bender is many things. If you were to refer to him as an innovator, a pioneer, sonic explorer and sound scientist; you would be correct. Mostly though, John is a force of reckoning. His sheer output is amazing. He does not deal in revisionism, and is compelled to see what he can make the equipment do for him. John started releasing his compositions in the early 80’s from his home studio in Cincinnati. Influenced by Can, Suicide, Pere Ubu, Terry Riley and Don Cherry he created music that became a template for much of the electronic music that has happened since his early releases. His drive to make music and move forward exploring technology is at the level of compulsion and has very little if any regard for looking backward. His early works on his own imprint, Record Sluts, are amazingly ahead of their time, and are a rare commodity sought after by collectors. After a thirty year hiatus from publicly releasing music, John has surfaced stronger and more creative than ever, releasing a daunting amount

Vance likes sound. He likes making things. He likes quiet surprises. He likes making sounds that surprise him. It started with Max controlled midi synths, (a Nord rack and Nord Modular) and Max/MSP laptop performance instruments in the 90s. Always interested in creating systems that could only influence and steer, but not control. Propagating an esthetic. He focuses on collapsing sounds – made both from the synthesizers and field recordings. Sonic archaeology – sounds on the edge of breaking – suspended in a structure bordering song and chaos. But please have fun. Eventually, his monkey sphere's needs and the functionality of the tech took over, leading to working in the NYC art scene designing and building all manner of systems for artists and institutions. And in the process – lost any artistic direction himself. Escaping to the hinterlands he has fully dedicated himself to his midlife-crisis and modular synthesizer systems. Again he hunts through sonic rubble, rhythmically pecked by familiar signposts of o

Jen Kutler is a sound based performer, maker and artist. She modifies found objects that are cultural signifiers of power, gender and intimacy to create atypical instruments for her performances. Her current project My Wife is a sound based performance group featuring many of her instruments and a sample based recording project exploring the discrepant experiences of familiar sound environments. 
 www.jenkutler.com