May 22, 2015

Friday night live at Transistor: experimental solo guitar by Derek Allen, post-ambient experimental electronics from onewayness and solo experimental synthesis from Reaktorplayer. Sound by Jon Monteverde. 

Derek Allen is a Chicago-based experimental musician. As front man for the experimental rock band Counterfeit i, Derek has released a handful of albums and EPs and toured extensively. A recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute’s Department of Sound, Derek performs sets using a guitar, pedals, and a small amp. The resulting sound is dynamic, varied, yet cohesive. His music can be heard on Bandcamp.

For his performance at Transistor, Derek played an improvised solo guitar set using various physical objects and effects alongside glossolalia and blurred vocal lines.

onewayness is Adam Holquist, an experimental electronic musician from Erie, Pennsylvania. He uses hardware and software, synths, spoken word and field recordings, and a variety of acoustic and electric instruments to create atmospheric compositions that draw influence from vintage Berlin-school electronic music, minimalism, post-rock, and contemporary electronic ‘listening music.’

For his performance at Transistor, Adam played a continuously flowing set, combining composed and improvised pieces for modular synthesizer, guitar(s), controllers, and software instruments and effects.

Visit the onewayness website.

Reaktorplayer is the musical and online persona of Robert Valentine, who has been experimenting with electronic music since 1972. Using Native Instruments Reaktor software and several hardware devices, Robert generates a broad range of highly unpredictable sounds that are controlled by MIDI guitar and keyboard. For his performance at Transistor, Robert will mix experimental synthesizer sounds with improvised guitar progressions to create an ever-changing sonic palette of sound colors. The resulting sound blends many musical influences from jazz and blues to space music and experimental noise.

More information and sounds can be found on Reaktorplayer’s Twitter and Soundcloud pages.