Nervous Plaything
Experimental musician & artist dabbling in drone, algorithmic/generative, low-fi rock, noise, electronica, synthwave and ambient genres. Using a collection of instruments, sound machines, custom software and controllers.
A musician and producer. He writes music to tell tales. Though a lot of his early music was personal in nature, recently he writes stories that illicit specific states of mind. While most of his music is performed on guitar, along with various digital and analog synthesisers, he writes with a textual focus as a musician. His musical influences are Alex Zhang Hungtai, David Byrne, Bernard Sumner, Nick Cave, John Cage, LCD Soundsystem, Laurie Anderson, The Velvet Underground and more.
His main interest that accompanies his music is in keeping performance authenticity that is often dismissed with digital technology while discovering the interaction between these and analog technologies. Occasionally he makes films and other digital installation works, which are mostly used to accompany his live performances. These are used to complete the emotional experience for his audience. Some examples of these are: various video mixers, live camera filters, a variety of audio/video software and even a live gestural controlled motion synthesizer. His home made algorithms and noisemakers are used to blur the line between artist and machine, and allow for deeper delve into timbre, when the work is partially controlled/uncontrolled. He works with generative music composition tools to explore new concepts and keep his own ego in check. His composition features academic intentions and strategies.
He started at smaller bars in 2012 and local competitions. Nervous Plaything has since played at places such as The Zoo, The Bearded Lady and for Brisbane Fringe Festival at experimental art exhibition Converted Realms. He also plays acoustic sets at places like Brew. Nervous Plaything has released two 7" digital recordings, two EPs and a few other tracks.
His latest output is his collection of his weekly Live Takes recordings. These were composed using a variety of digital tools made by the artist. These include: composition tools, effects, processors, randomisers, algorithms, synthesisers, noisemakers, instruments and visualisers. Some external instruments and tools were also used. These sorts of practices were performed in the Precursor experimental art series, through the guise of the Now-What through Backbone Youth Arts’ Future30 festival, and featured in the Australasian Computer Music Conference 2020. He outputs music weekly to action his mantra of “keeping up the work”.