The Freight Elevator Quartet (FEQ) were a music performance group specializing in improvisedelectronic music active in and around New York City. They performed and recorded continuously from 1996 to 2003, and collaborated extensively with experimental music artists such as DJ Spooky and Elliott Sharp, and avant-garde videographer Mark McNamara.
In addition to using electronic instruments (originally analog synthesizers and drum machines, later laptops and samplers), they also sported fairly unusual acoustic instrumentation, having a cellist and a didjeridoo player in their regular line-up. FEQ began as a house band for a series of warehouse parties on 125th Street in New York City, famously playing their first gig in a freight elevator. Their eponymous first record, released in 1997, was completely made of live recordings from shows played in their first year of performing, featuring the lineup of Stephen Krieger on drum machine, Rachael Finn on amplified cello, Paul Feuer on didjeridoo, and R. Luke DuBois on a Buchla analog synthesizer. Their second and subsequent records saw the gradual expansion of their instrumentation (starting with Feuer doubling on keyboards and DuBois playing guitars) until by the time of their break-up in 2003 the entire band was effectively composed of multi-instrumentalists.
As a conceptual project the Freight Elevator Quartet combined influences from experimental music and conceptual art as well as a strong interest in musical Futurism (played out in their joint recording with DJ Spooky, File Under Futurism). In their liner notes, they referred to themselves as a group of musicians in the present imagining the past imaging the future, a concept akin to the literary conceit of Steampunk; by combining cutting-edge digital (computers, samplers), obsolescent solid state (analog synthesizers), classical 18th century (cello), and aboriginal (didjeridoo) instrumentation, the group deliberately confused the temporal reference point of their music. Stylistically FEQ was known to appropriate whatever genres they felt like, working to fuse different styles of breakbeat, drum and bass, downtempo, digital hardcore, rock, hip hop, classical, and, most conspicuously, academic computer music. Though always billing themselves as an electronica act, their music has many stylistic similarities to the later genre of post-rock. Most of their recordings are culled from composite takes of live performances, though they have released two studio albums as well, both of which feature songs with guest vocalists, including Lorraine Lelis of the band Mahogany and Spezialmaterial recording artist Josh Druckman (as JMD).
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs, club DJs, mobile DJs, and turntablists. Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names.
Digital music technology encompasses digital instruments, computers, electronic effects units, software, or digital audio equipment by a performer, composer, sound engineer, DJ, or record producer to produce, perform or record music. The term refers to electronic devices, instruments, computer hardware, and software used in performance, playback, recording, composition, mixing, analysis, and editing of music.
An analogsynthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically.
A groovebox is a self-contained electronic or digital musical instrument for the production of live, loop-based electronic music with a high degree of user control facilitating improvisation. The term "Groovebox" was originally used by Roland Corporation to refer to its MC-303, released in 1996. The term has since entered general use, and dates back to the Movement Computer Systems Drum Computer in 1981.
Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the first ever house music productions, which were by Chicago-based artists in the 1980s.
A sampler is an electronic or digital musical instrument which uses sound recordings of real instrument sounds, excerpts from recorded songs or found sounds. The samples are loaded or recorded by the user or by a manufacturer. These sounds are then played back by means of the sampler program itself, a MIDI keyboard, sequencer or another triggering device to perform or compose music. Because these samples are usually stored in digital memory, the information can be quickly accessed. A single sample may often be pitch-shifted to different pitches to produce musical scales and chords.
Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer.
Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by Berlin-based Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for composing, recording, arranging, mixing, and mastering. It is also used by DJs, as it offers a suite of controls for beatmatching, crossfading, and other different effects used by turntablists, and was one of the first music applications to automatically beatmatch songs. Live is available in three editions: Intro, Standard, and Suite.
Elektron is a Swedish developer and manufacturer of musical instruments founded in 1998, as well as having its headquarters, R&D and production in Gothenburg, Sweden. They produce mainly electronic musical instruments, but have also made effects units and software. Since 2012, there have been branch offices in Los Angeles and in Tokyo.
Electribe is a group of electronic musical instruments by Korg. From its beginnings with the Electribe R to the ESX-1, this series includes both analogue modeling synthesizers and sampling drum machines that can be programmed the same as a drum machine. The analogue modeling synth and sampling drum machine both share a drum-pattern section and a synth-pattern section, whereby the user can not only program drum patterns, but also synth and basslines. These hybrid machines could be considered 'grooveboxes'.
Roger Luke DuBois is an American composer, performer, conceptual new media artist, programmer, record producer and pedagogue based in New York City.
Hip hop production is the creation of hip hop music in a recording studio. While the term encompasses all aspects of hip hop music creation, including recording the rapping of an MC, a turntablist or DJ providing a beat, playing samples and "scratching" using record players and the creation of a rhythmic backing track, using a drum machine or sequencer, it is most commonly used to refer to recording the instrumental, non-lyrical and non-vocal aspects of hip hop.
Byzar is an American experimental electronic music ensemble, considered one of the founders of the Illbient genre, along with DJ Spooky, Sub Dub, We, and the Soundlab collective, active in the New York experimental dance/electronic music scene during the 1990s.
Live PA is the act of performing live electronic music in settings typically associated with DJing, such as nightclubs, raves, and more recently dance music festivals.
Michel Waisvisz was a Dutch composer, performer and inventor of experimental electronic musical instruments. He was the artistic director of STEIM in Amsterdam from 1981, where he collaborated with musicians and artists from all over the world.
A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms, through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be altered by components such as filters, which cut or boost frequencies; envelopes, which control articulation, or how notes begin and end; and low-frequency oscillators, which modulate parameters such as pitch, volume, or filter characteristics affecting timbre. Synthesizers are typically played with keyboards or controlled by sequencers, software or other instruments, and may be synchronized to other equipment via MIDI.
John Zorn's Cobra: Live at the Knitting Factory is an album of a performance of John Zorn's improvisational game piece, Cobra, performed at the Knitting Factory in 1992. The album resembles the missing link between John Zorn's work with Masada and Naked City. It also had a major impact on the electronic scene of New York.
The use of electronic music technology in rock music coincided with the practical availability of electronic musical instruments and the genre's emergence as a distinct style. Rock music has been highly dependent on technological developments, particularly the invention and refinement of the synthesizer, the development of the MIDI digital format and computer technology.
This is a discography for electronic and experimental hip hop musician DJ Spooky. It lists studio albums, singles, EPs, collaborations, sideman appearances and albums released under his given name Paul D. Miller.
Scott Hansen, known professionally as Tycho, is an American musician, record producer, composer, and songwriter based in San Francisco. He is also known as ISO50 for his photographic and design work. His music blends multiple stylistic components, including downtempo guitar, analogue synthesis, and ambient elements such as breathing and found sounds of weather broadcasts and dialogue.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
