Bendik Giske takes ideas associated with electronic and club music and tries to produce them physically with saxophone, breath and microphones. He has described his approach as playing the building blocks of electronic music live, without layering or looping wherever possible.
That limitation immediately changes the sound.
A sequencer never runs out of breath. A human body does.
Giske uses circular breathing, key noises and contact microphones so that the mechanism of the saxophone becomes audible alongside its conventional tone. Fingers hitting keys can begin to function almost like percussion.
I like how this reverses the normal relationship between acoustic and electronic music.
Instead of processing an instrument until it behaves like a machine, the performer trains his body to approach the repetition and endurance associated with machines.
But the imperfections remain.
Breath changes. Muscles tire. Timing shifts slightly.
Those supposedly unwanted differences may be exactly what keeps repetition alive.
The machine becomes the reference point, but the body refuses to disappear.
