Aram Shelton's "Tonal Masher" Live at Mex, Künstlerhaus Dortmund (Excerpt)
Aram Shelton: Tonal Masher
Saxophon/
Electronic Solo
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Tonal Masher is the solo project of Aram Shelton on saxophone with processing via
Max/
MSP.
The main sound source for this music is resonant feedback harnessed by alternate saxophone fingerings and a custom made MaxMSP software patch.
http://www.aramshelton.com/music/tonal-masher/
Aram Shelton is a saxophonist and electronic musician from
Oakland, California, where the projects Tonal Masher, the
Broken Trap Ensemble, and the
Sound Quartet represent his music. He is connected to
Chicago (where he lived from
1999 to
2005) through his Quartet, the cooperative sextet
Fast Citizens and
Jason Adasiewicz’ Rolldown. His playing and music are available through
Delmark,
Clean Feed,
Cuneiform, 482
Music,
Locust Music, MultiKulti, Edgetone, and his own
Singlespeed Music.
Since
2001, Aram Shelton has been using computer based live sampling via Max/MSP in a variety of settings to process acoustic instruments. He received his
MFA in
Electronic Music from
Mills College, and his
2007 thesis focused on the use of live sampling to extend and rearrange the sounds of acoustic instruments in a live performance setting. He has taught at the
Oakland School for the Arts and has led improvisation and electroacoustic music workshops in
San Francisco, at
UC Santa Cruz,
Evergreen State University and the jazz school in
Luzern (CH). In
2002 he formed the duo
Grey Ghost (482 Music) with the drummer Johnathan
Crawford.
The Wire found their music to be a “focused symbiosis of breath and circuitry”. From
2010 to
2012 he joined
Michael Coleman and
Alex Vittum in the trio Stratic.
All About Jazz compared their music to “a waking dream memory of music”
. In the past year,
Shelton has focused on solo electroacoustic music that is based on explorations of the resonant feedback frequencies that are unique to the saxophone. Due to his ongoing fascination with sonic rearrangement, Shelton has chosen the anagram Tonal Masher as an apt moniker.