While Canadian music's best and brightest gathered for the Junos last weekend, another kind of artist was working far from the spotlight, searching for a different buzz -- the kind you get with a soldering iron and copper. Circuit bending, the art of rewiring old electronic machinery in order to create unreliable instruments, is gaining a following in Canada.
Chris Von Szombathy, an artist and multi-instrumentalist independently releasing his three-CD electronic album, Audio Ahdeo Awdio, on Saturday, has been destroying and creating electronics for the better part of a decade. A strange mix of low-fi synth and complex, harmony-laden songwriting, his project wouldn't have been possible, claims Von Szombathy, without his homemade "Doombox."
A breadbox-sized metal case containing parts from a toy steering wheel (complete with horn and siren), a battery-powered oscillator, and a Playskool keyboard, the Doombox, he says, "was made out of a love of constructive destruction." While Von Szombathy admits that "it's too unreliable to play The Well-Tempered Clavier on," the instrument's unpredictability and the strange tones it emits form the nucleus of Audio Ahdeo Awdio.
For Toronto's David Dineen-Porter, a comedy writer, part-time accountant and electronic musician, circuit bending was a fascination from an early age. "I loved Commodore 64 music when I was a kid. A lot of it sucked, but the good stuff was . . ." Dineen-Porter's voice trails off wistfully. "It was maybe some of the best music of the 20th century." He later went on-line and discovered a whole network of like-minded people, mostly living in Sweden and Germany. "So I said to myself, 'If that guy got his printer to play Beethoven, what can I do with a Commodore 64?' " His current projects include making a drum machine out of a dozen vibrators and rewiring old Nintendo games to make playable synthesizers.
Dineen-Porter is surprised at the outsider status of circuit benders and bemoans Toronto's lack of venues for such experimentation. The situation of circuit benders, he claims, is like that of synthesizer aficionados in the 1960s.
"They had a debate in the late sixties about whether synthesizers could ever have a place in 'real' music. Most people said that it could never happen. Then Walter/Wendy Carlos released the all-synth Switched on Bach, which became one of the best-selling classical albums of all time. And that ended the debate."
While both Von Szombathy and Dineen-Porter are pessimistic about their work appealing to the music industry, they also believe it's just a matter of time before circuit benders reach the mainstream. "Pop is just an approach towards the audience," says Dineen-Porter. "You can please a crowd with pretty much anything if you apply it properly."
So don't be frightened if at next year's Junos, you're treated to the sights and sounds of a dozen mangled vibrators rattling around the stage. It could be the buzz everyone is looking for.
Chris Von Szombathy's Audio Ahdeo Awdio launches April 8 at Vancouver's WRKS DVSN gallery, 269 Powell St., at 8 p.m. David Dineen-Porter's PDF Format plays Toronto regularly.
