Kim Cascone

Kim Cascone (born December 21, 1955 in Albion , Michigan ) is a composer of electronic and electroacoustic music in the fields of ambient and industrial . He is the founder of the Silent Records label and runs his own label, Anechoic Media . Cascone is married to Kathleen Cascone and has a son, Cage, who was named after John Cage .

Musical career

Cascone studied music with a focus on electronic music at Berklee College of Music (1973–76), audio engineering at the Institute of Audio Research, New York City, and theoretical foundations of electronics at the RCA Institute New York City. After graduation, he worked as an electrical engineer for various music companies such as Crumar , Eventide , Hyde Street Studios and Orban Associates in the 1980s . In 1983 he moved to San Francisco . In 1989 he became Assistant Music Editor for David Lynch (on Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart ) and then worked at the Saul Zaentz Film Center and George Lucas ' Skywalker Ranch .

In 1986 he founded Silent Records , then Pulsoniq Distribution , Furnace Records , Flask Records and Sulfur Records and released his music under the pseudonym PGR (Poison Gas Research). His early releases are heavily influenced by the first wave of industrial in the 1980s. It is best known under the name Heavenly Music Corporation , the name refers to a piece on the album (No Pussyfooting) by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp . Kim Cascone released four albums under this name from 1993 to 1996.

In 1996 Cascone sold Silent Records and Pulsoniq Distribution to work as a sound designer and composer for Thomas Dolby's Headspace company . He then worked as Content Director for Staccato Systems , an offshoot of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University, where he helped develop an algorithm for realistic audio atmospheres and background music for video games. In 1998 he started making music again and has since released on various labels as well as his own new label Anechoic Media mainly under his real name.

Collaborations and working methods

Cascone has released more than 40 albums since 1984 and worked with Oval , Merzbow , Keith Rowe , Tony Conrad , Scanner , John Tilbury , Domenico Sciajno, Pauline Oliveros , Peter Rehberg , Carsten Nicolai , Doug Aitken , David Toop and others. Most of the work with other musicians is based on Digidesign's Pro Tools , while his own work is mostly composed or constructed with Cycling74's Max / MSP .

Articles and treatises on music

In addition, he has written articles and essays for academic journals and magazines written media, including for the Computer Music Journal of MIT , Artbyte , Contemporary Music Review , Sound Cultures , Parachute Journal , Junk Jet , surveyors and Zehar . He is particularly known for his groundbreaking treatise The Aesthetics of Failure , in which the use of digital interference signals and systemic incorrect operation in the context of post-digital composition and for laptop music is shown. The paper is read by many students in digital media courses at universities.

Current work

Most recently, Cascone has dealt with anthropogenic noises in oceanic environments and launched a sound art festival under the name Hydrophonia , which has previously taken place in Genoa, San Sebastian and Barcelona. At this festival mainly sound artists appear who work with hydrophones as well as loudspeaker systems on the level of bioacoustic and anthropogenic noises and also offer workshops on the construction of hydrophones. Since 2009 he has been working with the Schillinger composition system . He is a member of the bands Astralfish , Hydrosphere , Patternclear (2) , PGR , Satellite IV , the Spice Barons and the Thessalonians .

Discography

As Kim Cascone

• Blue Cube [] ( Raster-Noton 1998)
• Cathode Flower (Ritornell 1999)
• Residualism (Ritornell 2001)
• Dust Theories (c74 2001)
• The Crystalline Address, with Scanner ( Sub Rosa 2002)
• Pulsar Studies (anechoic 2004)
• Rondo / 7Phases / Blowback, with Merzbow (Sub Rosa 2004)
• Gravity Handler (CRC 2004)
• Statistically Improbable Phrases (anechoic 2006)
• The Astrum Argentum (anechoic 2008)
• Pharmacy: Green & Red (anechoic 2008)
• Music for Dagger & Guitar (Aural Terrains 2008)
• anti-musical celestial forces (Storung 2009)
• The Knotted Constellation (fourteen rotted coordinates) (Monotype 2011)
• Subflowers - Phi (Emitter Micro 2016)

As PGR

• Silence (PGR, 1985)
• The Flickering of Sowing Time (RRRecords, 1986)
• Cyclone Inhabited by Immobility (Permis de Construire, 1987)
• The Black Field (Silent, 1989)
• Fetish, with Arcane Device (Silent, 1990)
• The Chemical Bride (Silent, 1992)
• The Morning Book of Serpents (Silent, 1995)
• A Hole of Unknown Depth (Silent, 1996)

As Heavenly Music Corporation

• In a Garden of Eden (Silent, 1993)
• Consciousness III (Silent, 1994)
• Lunar phase (Silent, 1995)
• Anechoic (Silent, 1996)

With KGB Trio

• Swiss Pharmaceuticals (Utech, 2005)
• Smoke on Devil's Mountain (Scrapple Records, 2008)
• Noise Forest (Aural Terrains, 2009)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Interview Angbase
2. ↑ http://www.angbase.com/interviews/kim_cascone.html Interview
3. ↑ see also web links: Kim Cascone on Cycling74
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Aesthetics of Failure 
5. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Web links

• Homepage
• The Aesthetics of Failure
• Discography on Discogs
• at 12k
• Biography on Artistdirect Music
• Interview on Spiderbytes
• Interview on Ctheory
• Interview on Cycling74
• Interview KGB Trio