Ikue Mori’s move from a drum kit to drum machines in the mid-1980s was not a search for tighter time. She took machines designed to supply dependable backing rhythms into improvised music, where listening and immediate response matter more than repetition. Eventually she was orchestrating three drum machines with effects and a digital mixer before replacing that setup with a laptop around 2000.
The unusual part is not the equipment but the role she gave it. A conventional drum-machine part often establishes a stable ground for other musicians. Mori made the programmed sounds behave like another improviser: interrupting, changing density, leaving space, introducing textures that did not resemble a normal drum kit. A limited palette became expressive because she learned how quickly she could redirect it in performance.
That suggests a useful way to practise with electronic instruments. Do not begin by building a finished loop. Load a deliberately small set of contrasting sounds, map only a few controls, and respond to another recording in real time. Mute, retrigger, change decay and move between sparse and crowded passages. The aim is not to prove that a machine can imitate a human drummer. It is to discover what kind of listening becomes possible when the machine is treated as an instrument rather than an obedient clock.
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2022/ikue-mori
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