Slub (band)

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Dave and Alex of Slub performing live in London. The left screen shows one performer's CLI, the right shows the other performer's "Scheme bricks" coding interface, and the top shows a custom-made game environment through which audience members influence the music generation. Slub live Roebuck.jpg
Dave and Alex of Slub performing live in London. The left screen shows one performer's CLI, the right shows the other performer's "Scheme bricks" coding interface, and the top shows a custom-made game environment through which audience members influence the music generation.

Slub is an algorave group formed in 2000 by Adrian Ward and Alex McLean, joined by Dave Griffiths in 2005 and Alexandra Cardenas in 2017. They are known for making their music exclusively from their own generative software, projecting their screens so their audience can see their handmade interfaces. [1] Their music is improvised, and advertised as falling within the ambient gabba genre. [2] [3]

Since 2005 slub performances have been exclusively live coded, using a variety of different self-built language environments. [4] Fluxus, a Scheme game engine; and Tidal, a pure functional DSL embedded in Haskell.

In 2011, while on the way to a gig, Alex McLean and Nick Collins invented the Algorave. [5]

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Alex McLean British musician and researcher (born 1975)

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Algorave

An algorave is an event where people dance to music generated from algorithms, often using live coding techniques. Alex McLean of Slub and Nick Collins coined the word "algorave" in 2011, and the first event under such a name was organised in London, UK. It has since become a movement, with algoraves taking place around the world.

Alexandra Cardenas is a Colombian composer and improviser now based in Berlin, who has followed a path from Western classical composition to improvisation and live electronics. Her recent work has included live coding performance, including performances at the forefront of the Algorave scene, she also co-organised a live coding community in Mexico City. At the 2014 Kurukshetra Festival Cardenas was a keynote speaker and hosted a music live coding workshop, the first of its kind in India. Cardenas has been invited to talk about and perform live coding at events such as the Berlin based Transmediale festival and the Ableton sponsored Loop symposium, and held residencies including at Tokyo Wonder Site in Japan and Centre for the Arts in Mexico City.

Joanne Armitage Musical artist

Joanne Armitage is a composer, improviser and researcher based in Leeds, England, notable for her practice in live coded music, and research into haptics in music performance. She performs internationally using the SuperCollider language, including as half of live coding duo ALGOBABEZ with Shelly Knotts associated with the Algorave movement. Her music is often performed in a club setting, while embracing error and uncertainty. She is also known as advocate for diversity in music and technology, including through invited workshops. Armitage is a lecturer in Digital Media at the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, UK.

References

  1. Shulgin, Alexei (2003), "Listen to the Tools", Read_me 2.3 reader, Helsinki: NIFCA, ISBN   951-8955-74-3
  2. "Slub performance". 2009. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  3. Slub-trio, Muziek moet het visuele volgen, niet omgekeerd (dutch interview)
  4. Armitage, Tom (24 September 2009). "Slub: Making music with live computer code". Wired Magazine. Retrieved 22 April 2010.
  5. Cheshire, Tom (29 August 2013). "Hacking meets clubbing with the 'algorave'". Wired Magazine. Retrieved 29 August 2013.