Keith Fullerton Whitman
Biography
"Understand that my first love was not the 'amen break', nor was it an acidic 0/1 stream from the soundcard of a Max/MSP equipped Mac laptop. It was the looping synthetic minimalism of Harmonia & Cluster, the just-this-side-of-total-chaos production of those early Mono Pink Floyd singles, the orchestrated beauty of Mussogorksy and Debussy, the logic-defying energy of Arto Lindsay and Rudolph Grey's guitars..."
(Keith Fullerton Whitman from the liner notes to Antithesis)
Keith Fullerton Whitman has recorded and released music under a number of pseudonyms, most notably Hvratski. Hvratski has appeared on more compilations than you can shake a stick at and criss-crossed the globe laying down breakbeat-concrete for the kids. Keith has also worked at the Forced Exposure distribution centre, written about music, lectured at Ivy League universities, and is a graduate of the Berklee School of Music. He runs a record label and mail-order service.
After an EP on the Apartment B label, 21:30 For Acoustic Guitar, Playthroughs was the first album under Keith's given name. The source material for every piece on Playthroughs is the guitar: acoustic, electric, or otherwise. From September 2001 until April 2002 Keith Fullerton Whitman transformed those guitar pieces via laptop computer into the tracks on Playthroughs. Whitman used ring modulators, granular shuffling algorithms, delays and spectral effects in a process that owes a lot to Terry Riley's Time Lag Accumulator and Steve Reich's Piano Phases. Technology and Whitman's careful selection of notes combine to create shimmering drones and deep waves of sound.
Though the source material was improvised guitar and the processing involved computer technology, Playthroughs reflects Whitman's mastery of composition.
Antithesis, his next release, was a limited edition LP collecting ensemble works Keith Fullerton Whitman had recorded in the various apartments he had rented in the Boston, MA area. The four tracks are called ensemble works because they all feature Whitman overdubbing various instruments (guitar, fender rhodes piano, viola and percussion) and do not have any computer processing. The material veers from sheer drone to neo-kraut drum circle ritual.
In Fall 2004, kranky will release a second, limited edition album from Whitman. Schoner Fluengel is composed of material with a decidedly dark cast. The tracks were recorded over a number of years with computer, vocals, clarinet, guitar, synthesizer, record player, microphone, and bell. Packaged in a faux-dark metal cover, Schoner Fluengel is a dip into a cold, stygian stream that splashes and flows around the listener.
Keith Fullerton Whitman is working on a new full length album for kranky entitled Multiples. Featuring guest players and a variety of vintage synths Whitman used during a stint at Harvard's sound lab, it is something we can all look forward to.