Showcase ‘warps’ definition of pop

by John B. Hamel II

Friday, November 9, 2007 22:33

For those who are stultified from seeing live bands simply replicate the sound on their records, the Circuit-Bending Madness Showcase in this weekend's Madison Pop Festival might offer salvation.

The showcase, scheduled to run tomorrow from 4 to 9 p.m. at Memorial Union, might also be the most enigmatic event in the festival, which opened with a talk by Michigan rock musician Andrew WK Thursday and runs through Saturday. "Circuit-bending" is a term that may not be familiar to most and may require some demystification.

Circuit-bending is a relatively new and unique musical genre, where artists not only play their own music, but also build their own instruments. The artists create new instruments by short circuiting low-voltage, battery-powered electronic audio devices such as synthesizers and children's toys to produce a sound that is completely unique.

"It's a do-it-yourself approach that brings out a whole palette of sounds that would not exist with conventional instruments," said Alex Dyba, a circuit-bending artist who will be performing in the showcase under the moniker Talking Computron, in a phone interview. He also runs GetLoFi.com, an informational blog for circuit-bending.

The experimental genre circuit-bending relies heavily on fortuity rather than intention. The sounds that the instruments create are often manipulated to be highly randomized and unconventional. The spontaneous element of their instruments defines the genre and the philosophy behind it.

"The machines don't make the same sounds in any repetition that you can depend on," said Rodney Clark, who runs Tiger Claw Records, a circuit-bending record label based in Madison, and who will be performing as Life As Number Five in the showcase. "Circuit-bending is the art of chance."

Because chance plays such a central role in "bent" music, the musicians are often forced to extemporize with the instruments they have during live sets.

Roth Mobot, a Chicago-based duo that will also be performing in the showcase, typically improvises their whole live set.

"It's like jazz, you have a feel for what to play next based on your knowledge of the instrument," said Dyba, describing how live circuit-bent music will never be able to be completely recreated. "If anything, it is a genre that embraces improvisation."

Talking Computron, Roth Mobot and other circuit-bending musicians also incorporate video-bending, which applies the same concepts as circuit-bending to the production of video images, into their live music sets.

"It creates more of an aesthetic, it is like abstract painting," said Dyba, referring to the video-bending in his live set. "It's not literal. It is new."

Dyba found it quite ironic that the Madison Pop Festival chose to include a genre that is experimental and noise-driven in a festival that is advertised as a "pop festival."

"[Circuit-bending] is not by definition pop," said Dyba. "It is probably the opposite of that in some cases."

But Clark of Tiger Claw Records commented that both jazz and punk were considered just to be chaotic noise when they were first played, and both genres eventually became a part of popular culture.

"Maybe this is the future of pop music," Clark suggested.

The Circuit-Bending Madness Showcase will feature performances by Talking Computron, Beatrix JAR, Roth Mobot, and Life as Number Five. Beatrix JAR and Talking Computron are also scheduled to give circuit-bending workshops prior to the show. The workshops are intended to demonstrate basic and advanced techniques behind circuit-bending.