Graycode

Complex sound collage, and computer manipulation of guitar, clarinets, and percussion. Featuring Kevin Patton (guitar + electronics), Butch Rovan (clarinets + electronics), and Fred Kennedy (percussion), GrayCode's unique style blends improvised and composed music to create a new sound that explores timbre, extended instrumental technique, and the ins and outs of groove.

At the heart of GrayCode's sound is custom technology that extends their acoustic instruments with wireless sensor systems. Built by Rovan and Patton, the modified instruments track their performance gestures and allow the two to control real-time sound synthesis and audio processing through their physical movement.

At the intersection of contemporary music, jazz, and electroacoustic genres, Patton, Rovan, and Kennedy create atmospheric sound worlds that oscillate between ambient calm and aggressive chaos, suspended time and serious groove. In the processof deconstructing and reconstructing musical texture, GrayCode weaves a tapestry of wild patterns and rhythmic impulses that are unrelenting and always unpredictable.

butch rovan: reeds + electronics
Butch Rovan is a composer and performer on the faculty of the Department of Music at Brown University, where he co-directs MEME (Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments @ Brown) and the Ph.D. program in Computer Music and Multimedia. Prior to joining Brown he directed CEMI, the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia, at the University of North Texas, and was a compositeur en recherche with the Real-Time Systems Team at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique Musique (IRCAM) in Paris.

Rovan has received prizes from the Bourges International Electroacoustic MusicCompetition, the Berlin Transmediale International Media Arts Festival, and his work has been performed throughout Europe and the U.S. He frequently performs his own work, either with his custom glove-controller system or with augmented acoustic instruments.

Rovan's research includes new sensor hardware design and wireless microcontroller systems. His research into gestural control and interactivity has been featured in IRCAM's journal "Resonance", "Electronic Musician", the Computer Music Journal, the Japanese magazine "SoundArts" and is featured on the CDROM "Trends in Gestural Control of Music", published by IRCAM (2000). More of his work can be seen at http://www.soundidea.org

kevin patton: guitar + electronics
Kevin Patton is a composer, guitarist, and experimental sound performer interested in exploring the increasingly nebulous borderlands between humans and machines in performance. The integration of interactive electronic music and machine improvisation into traditional performance contexts is at the center of his practice. His music and ideas have been presented at the Electronic Music Studies (EMS) International conference in Beijing, China, and the Visiones Sonoras festival in Morelia, Mexico, among many. His work in the development of a notation system for interactive chamber music will be published this fall by the British journal Organised Sound. Kevin often performs his own work in both instrumental improvisation and interactive
chamber music and has performed in Europe, Japan, and throughout North America. He is currently pursuing a PhD in electronic music and multimedia composition at Brown University.

fred kennedy: percussion
Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, drummer and sound designer Frederick Kennedy now makes his home in New York City. In the last few years, Fred has completed tours to France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Ecuador, the Southwestern United States, and California. Fred is fortunate to have had the opportunity to perform
with many fantastic artists, including David Krakauer, Tim Hagans, Ben Monder, Bobby Shew, Sheryl Bailey, Joe LoCascio, Lynn Seaton, Dan Haerle, Philip Glass, and Iva Bitova. Fred has also worked extensively collaborating with theatre and dance artists on such projects as Tiger’s Heart (97), The Secret Place (02), Trout Stanley (04), and Brighter Than the Light of the Sun (05), for which Fred received a Robert Merrit Award for Best Sound Design.