Take your smartphone to art school.
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A single man was on stage holding an instrument no larger than his hand.
But that night in 2012, Noeckers Raft project took on unexpected new life.
I had pedals with me, but no instruments.
I went to Zebulon and did it and it totally worked.
And I was like: This is the kind of art Im into.
He uses apps Filtatron and Animoog, both by Moog, and the Native InstrumentsiMaschine.
And from that, I got a Grammy nomination.
So Im like, okay, this is my life.
Incarcerated rappers notoriously record albums on albums on albums over the phone from prison.
But theres something cognitively separate from the cell phone and the studio.
Then I capture it and manipulate it granularly like, remixing the words or syllables from the recording.
Usually makes for some pretty uncanny results.
(Full disclosure: Fox and I have performed and toured together.)
I love the iPhone microphone, Sylvester told me.
(Full disclosure: I worked for Nick at Godmode for some years as a producer and project manager.
No one I spoke to for this piece used or even knew of DM1.)
I recorded my last two singles on that, you would never know.
The artist Jeffrey Dalessandro ascribes more of a philosophy to the instrument than an aesthetic.
Music is easy, music is everywhere, Dalessandro said.
The success of sound is timing.
The challenges of music are worldly personalities, equipment, and space become impossible obstacles.
We spend a lot of time holding our phones, and our phones experience us at our least self-conscious.
Vocal booths are a crime against singers.
It is so much fun, King Britt told me in an email from Berlin.
I love the immediacy and limitations that these apps have.
It makes you think of being more creative with less.
Ive got so many beats from going to and from a job.
Its something to sit in your studio and compose.
However, composing in a public space, theres a whole other energy there.
Things become cinematic when you disjoint what you see from what youre hearing.
A myriad of things can emerge.
Im not completely interested in success, Dalessandro said.
With phones, sound can travel faster than light.
