The austraLYSIS Electroband
Creating Australian Improvised Musics

"makes music on more technology than the Navy possesses" (Sydney Morning Herald, 2000)

"those doyens of computerised music" (Sydney Morning Herald, 2008)

"one of the best improvising bands in the world" (Time Out, Sydney, 2009)

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austraLYSIS has developed unusual techniques for control of rhythmic, timbral and harmonic interaction, and since 1995 has used computer interactive and networked technology in the austraLYSIS Electroband. "Incredible interaction" said the Wire (UK); "eclectic and consummate" said BBC Radio 3. Formed by Roger Dean in 1970 as the innovative European group LYSIS, austraLYSIS has played in 30 countries, and made more than thirty commercial recordings.Since 2010, austraLYSIS’ work has been pesented in countries such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, Romania, Singapore, UK, and the US.

The Electroband repertoire is based around free and process/interaction improvisation and comprovisation, mainly using compositions of Roger Dean, many written in the programming platform MAX/MSP. Novel computer interaction, real-time computational sound processing and generation is used to complement and extend the acoustic instruments (primarily piano, saxophones), and often form a complete continuum with them. A common feature is the use of dense polyrhythmic and polymetric structures. Real-time audio-visual performances (using Jitter for algorithmic image generation and manipulation) extend this further. Most recently we have extended the work by means of generative techniques from AI/machine learning, and developing a continuous pitch virtual piano (Leonardo article in press, 2021).

Members of the Electroband: Roger Dean (piano, computer); Sandy Evans (saxophones); Greg White (computer). austraLYSIS member Phil Slater (trumpet) often performs with the Electroband also.

Our most recent releases are austraLYSIS: Music for Soprano Trombone, Piano and Electronics, listen or buy here australysis.bandcamp.com 2018; the austraLYSIS Electroband: History Goes Everywhere (Tall Poppies CD TP234, 2015). John Clare: 'History Goes Everywhere and space travels freely too ... I love it'. To hear a selection of live performance examples of the Electroband, go here within HearSeeRead, particularly to the mid-part of the reverse chronology.

austraLYSIS won the international 2018 Robert Coover Award for a work of Electronic Literature.

Australian novelist and poet David Malouf has written of austraLYSIS' Tall Poppies cd Moving the Landscapes:

"Track after track commands our attention, not just with the drama of what austraLYSIS can do, but with the variety of means, instrumentally and rhythmically, and the degree of emotion they are prepared to risk. What I liked best of all was the inwardness these performers develop, the sense we get of their moving off alone, without compromising the drama of interplay; most of all, without ever releasing tension. This is improvisation that offers increased pleasure at every hearing...Moving the Landscapes is a real coup."

John Shand of the Sydney Morning Herald (2013) on our MultiPiano album: ‘trail-blazing’,'willing grooves', 'earthy approach', ‘surprising and disquieting’, ‘exquisite’, ‘crystalline or tumultuous’, ‘brilliant musicianship’, ‘exploding with vivacity'. Jazz Journal (Europe) awarded this 5 stars.

amongst austraLYSIS recent releases: austraLYSIS: Music for Soprano Trombone, Piano and Electronics, to be found here australysis.bandcamp.com 2018; the austraLYSIS Electroband: History Goes Everywhere (Tall Poppies TP234, 2015). John Clare: 'History Goes Everywhere and space travels freely too ... I love it'.

 

EDUCATIONAL and RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

In conjunction with performance events, the austraLYSIS Electroband also offers performance masterclasses, and also lecture/recital/workshops on: jazz and its development; 20th century developments in improvisation and composition; and process and computer interaction in improvisation. Leader Roger Dean has also published well known books on Creative Improvisation (1989: a practical book); New Structures in Jazz and Improvised Music (1992: a musicological work); others on improvisation (1997, 2003); and edited Oxford Handbooks on Computer Music (2009), and Algorithmic Music (2018), the latter released in paperback in 2021. Dean's research now concerns music cognition and computation and particularly, improvisation. He has evolved an empirical project on interpersonal interactions during small group improvisation, correlated with ongoing computational and musicological analysis of the resultant works. Sandy Evans and Greg White both also have extensive educational experience (notably with the University of New South Wales, and with the Australian Institute of Music, SAE, and HELI, respectively. Like Roger, both have doctoral research degrees, Sandy for studies of the inter-relations between Indian and jazz improvisation, Greg for studies of the convergence of performance/mixing/and sound projection in computer interactive music. austraLYSIS has given workshops in many countries, for lay and student participants (e.g. in New Zealand and Australia; Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore, Hong Kong, and India; and widely in Europe).

BOOKINGS and Enquiries to : austraLYSIS Productions, PO Box 6, Cronulla, NSW 2230. Telephone : + 61 (0)481 309612. email : rogerdeanalysis@gmail.com.

You can download an Electroband brochure here.