Music, Movement, Machines

Episode #6: PHEEK

This week's guest Pheek does it all in the world of music. He is a musician, producer, label owner, sound engineer, educator and much more. His discogs page lists 35 albums, over 50 singles and EPs, and more than 900 credits to his name. Hailing from the Montreal scene, he is well-known internationally in the world of electronic music, through his output, touring, and collaborations with many other artists. In the last few years he has moved to the country outside of Montreal, where he runs a studio, hosts musician retreats, provides coaching services, and continues to create new music. There is a personal/professional connection with Pheek and the podcast, as the studio where I record the podcast was his own for many years. With his help and encouragement, the studio was transformed into the collective that runs and uses it now. In our conversation, Pheek gives some history and context to the studio, as well as his almost 40-year (and counting!) career of making music, and we talk about his own process and advice for producing music. LINKS: * Pheek: musician website [https://pheek.com/] | audio services website [https://audioservices.studio/] | linktree [https://linktr.ee/pheek] * Towards the end of the episode Pheek mentions Yaeltex, a South American company that builds custom MIDI controllers: https://yaeltex.com/ [https://yaeltex.com/] ABOUT THE PODCAST: This 6th episode concludes the first "season", if you will, of the Music, Movement, Machines podcast! It has been a pleasure to put these episodes together, and I'm looking forward to the next batch. I'm taking a little time to retool and make some small changes to the production, but overall the format will stay mostly the same, and I'll be back soon with more conversations with musicians, artists and researchers. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with others, visit the Patreon home [https://www.patreon.com/collection/1832182] (where you can find video episodes) and check out the accompanying "Music, Movement, Machines" newsletter at johnnyvenom.substack.com [https://johnnyvenom.substack.com]. Thank you for listening!

Episode #5: Adam Pultz Melbye

Adam Pultz Melbye is a double bassist, composer, improviser, musical instrument builder, algorithmic designer, interdisciplinary artist, researcher... the list goes on and on. Perhaps most importantly, Adam is a wonderful human being who I am lucky to have gotten to know over the last few years. Adam joined me by video call from Berlin to share their journey from jazz bassist through their prolific and ever expanding career in the arts, technology and research, and some of the feminist and queer theoretical underpinnings of their current practice-based works and residencies. LINKS AND NOTES FROM THE EPISIODE * Adam's website is adampultz.com [https://www.adampultz.com/], where you can find links to their music, projects, research and publications * Adam holds a practice-led PhD in music technology from SARC [https://www.qub.ac.uk/research-centres/sarc/about/] (Sonic Arts Research Centre), Queen's University Belfast. * Music of Adam's current practice is concerned with feedback instruments, especially the FAAB [https://www.adampultz.com/faab] (feedback-actuated augmented bass), which was designed in collaboration with Halldór Úlfarsson (of halldorophone [https://www.halldorophone.info/] fame). * We talk about RAVE [https://forum.ircam.fr/projects/detail/rave/] (Realtime Audio Variational autoEncoder), a fascinating (and fun!) framework for neural network-based sound synthesis and timbre transfer. * Adam and I served with our colleague Raul Masu as environmental co-officers [https://nime.org/environment/] for the New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference from 2021 - 2024; during that time we co-authored a paper [https://doi.org/10.21428/92fbeb44.5725ad8f] and created the wiki eco.nime.org [https://eco.nime.org], with information and resources to address environmental sustainability in music technology research. RECENT PROJECTS AND RESIDENCIES THAT WE TALK ABOUT INCLUDE: * "Kin: Speculative Evolutionary Algorithms [https://speculative.iem.at/docs/guest_contributions/adam_pultz_melbye/]", which was part of the Speculative Sound Synthesis [https://speculative.iem.at/] project at the Institute of Electronic Arts (IEM) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. * "Queer Sonic Fingerprint [https://artlaboratory-berlin.org/exhibitions/queer-sonic-fingerprint/]" transdisciplinary research and sound installation at the Art Laboratory Berlin, with Isabel Bredenbröker. As always, the video version of this podcast is available on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/collection/1832182?view=expanded], and the companion newsletter can be found at johnnyvenom.substack.com [https://johnnyvenom.substack.com/]. If you appreciate the podcast please don't forget to subscribe, like and share!

Episode #4: Marcelo Wanderley

Happy 2026! We are SO back. More snow, more ice, and more podcasts! After taking a much needed pause over the holidays, Music, Movement, Machines continues with new episodes coming out roughly every couple weeks. As always, thank you for tuning in, and if you know of others who might like to listen, please share it with them. In this episode, I sat down for a conversation with my former PhD co-supervisor, Marcelo Wanderley. Marcelo is a professor of Music Technology at McGill University where he leads the Input Devices and Musical Interaction Laboratory. He is also the current director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology, a multidisciplinary research centre that serves several Quebec universities. Marcelo is well-known across the world of music technology, and especially in the area of musical interface and digital musical instrument design. His ongoing work, teaching, and supervision has helped music tech research evolve as a truly interdisciplinary field, and under his leadership CIRMMT continues to redefine what this can mean for the future. LINKS AND SHOW NOTES Below is a list of relevant links and information about some of the things that we talk about in the episode. * The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT [https://cirmmt.org]) * The Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL [https://idmil.org]) * Guests continue to be closely affiliated with IRCAM [https://www.ircam.fr/] and NIME [https://nime.org], and Marcelo is no different. Fun fact: Marcelo Wanderley is the Most Cited Author in the first 20 years of the NIME Conference! [https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/channels/news/marcelo-wanderley-most-cited-author-first-20-years-nime-conference-331860] (source [https://nime.pubpub.org/pub/20nimes/release/3]) * Trends in Gestural Control of Music [https://www.idmil.org/project/trends-in-gestural-control-of-music/] (2000) is an e-book (originally published as a CD-ROM) edited by Wanderley and Marc Battier. It is one of the earliest sources of literature on gesture and interaction for computer music. * Also mentioned in the episode: Problems and Prospects for Intimate Musical Control of Computers [https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2001/nime2001_011.pdf] (2001) by David Wessel and Matt Wright, which should have been in Trends... but instead was published at the first year of NIME! * Finally, Marcelo mentions one of the publications he and I co-authored, Stability, Reliability, Compatibility: Reviewing 40 Years of DMI Design [https://www.johnnyvenom.com/publication/sullivan-2018-a/] (2018) as we discussed expanded musical practice (one of CIRMMT's four research axes [https://www.cirmmt.org/en/research/axes]).

Episode #3: Sarah Fdili Alaoui

Sarah Fdili Alaoui is a Reader at the Creative Computing Institute at the University of the Arts London [https://www.arts.ac.uk/creative-computing-institute] and also a dancer and choreographer. She conducts research in human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer science with a focus on dance, movement, and technology. Prior to her position in London, Sarah was Associate Professor in the ex)situ research group [https://ex-situ.lri.fr/] at LISN-Université Paris-Saclay [https://www.lisn.upsaclay.fr/]. She supervised my postdoctoral work there from 2022 to 2024, and together we created the dance/music/AI work For Patricia. We talk about Sarah's background as a dancer and engineer, and how these areas coalesced into her current and future interdisciplinary work, which cover dance technology, research through design, responsible AI, decolonization of dance technology and research, and more. This podcast episode is available everywhere you get your podcasts from and, additionally, available ad-free and in video form on Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/collection/1832182]. SOME LINKS AND NOTES FROM THE PODCAST: * Sarah's professional website is saralaoui.com [https://saralaoui.com]. * She mentions IRCAM, l'Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique [https://ircam.fr], a public research centre dedicated to musical expression and scientific research. Located in Paris, it is one of the most important and well-known centres for research in music and technology. * We talk here and there about For Patricia [https://johnnyvenom.com/for-patricia], the live work we co-created. (Note: Patreon members can see the full performance [https://www.patreon.com/posts/for-patricia-stf-138468759?utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink] from last year's Sõltumatu Tantsu Festival in Tallinn, Estonia.) * Sarah discusses the work of Léo Chedin (For Patricia collaborator and Ph.D. student at ex)situ / LISN-U. Paris-Saclay), and Liz (Santoro) and Pierre (Goddard), choreographers and collaborators. * Liz and Pierre's company le principe d'incertitude [https://lpdi.org] creates contemporary dance works that often involve layers of technology and experimental, genre-defying performances. I worked with them on the piece "The Game of Life [https://www.lpdi.org/projects/the_game_of_life]" to create the interactive elements that structured the piece. The four of us, Liz, Pierre, Sarah and I, published a paper [https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563657.3596078] about the development of the piece, based on my firsthand experience and interviews with the team. I also published a "Making of..." blog post [https://www.johnnyvenom.com/documentation/the-game-of-life-in-depth/] about the design process. * Coming full circle, Léo has worked with Liz and Pierre in their newest work, "This is unreal [https://www.lpdi.org/projects/this_is_unreal]", developing AI tools that can learn and generate dance choreographies. Finally: As always, if you enjoyed this podcast, please also check out the companion "Music, Movement, Machines" newsletter at johnnyvenom.substack.com [https://johnnyvenom.substack.com]. If you would like to directly support my work, please consider becoming a Patreon supporter at patreon.com/johnnyvenom [https://patreon.com/johnnyvenom]. And of course, please share this with others who you think might be interested!

Episode #2: Alex Tibbitts, a.k.a. The Bionic Harpist

In this episode, I connect with Alex Tibbitts, a.k.a. "The Bionic Harpist". A longtime Montrealer currently residing in Mexico City, Alex is a classically trained harpist whose practice over the last several years has evolved into contemporary electroacoustic and electronic music. Alex and I are longtime collaborators, with an ongoing research-creation project involving analysis of gesture in harp performance and the design of bespoke digital musical interfaces that attach to her harp, which she uses in her live performances. In our conversation, we recap the research we have done together and track Alex's evolution from classical to the avant-garde. We discuss some of the key collaborators that Alex is working with to bring her live performances and recorded music to life. Alex's debut solo album "Impressions" drops November 28th, and the single "Night of Violet" is out now.  MORE ABOUT THE BIONIC HARPIST: * Find Alex online: Linktree [https://linktr.ee/the.bionic.harpist] * "Night of Violet" (single): Streaming links [https://onerpm.link/night_of_violet] (watch the video on YouTube [https://youtu.be/N23Tq1ElssA?si=fN-XS7vnwtd0sdBI]!!!) About our collaboration on the Bionic Harpist controllers:  * Project info [https://www.johnnyvenom.com/project/research/bionic-harpist/] * In depth: Designing the Bionic Harpist [https://www.johnnyvenom.com/documentation/bionic-harpist-in-depth/] Alex's collaborators: * Techno Para Dos (Raúl Villamil) [https://www.freelastica.com/techno-para-dos/] * David Jonathan Romero [https://monsieurbutterfly.com/]