Natural Machines, by Dan Tepfer

Natural Machines

by Dan Tepfer

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mmecruella Someone else said "this is completely unlistenable" ... which must make me a superhero because I've got it on repeat.

Matthew Batchelder This is completely unlistenable.

	/

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1.	All The Things You Are / Canon at the Octave 04:04	info	buy track
2.	TriadSculpture 05:10	info	buy track
3.	Constant Motion 04:59	info	buy track
4.	Looper 10:56	info	buy track
5.	Inversion 02:52	info	buy track
6.	Intervals I / Industrial 01:42	info	buy track
7.	Tremolo 06:20	info	buy track
8.	Canon at the Octave / MetricMod 08:16	info	buy track
9.	Intervals II / Folk Song 04:06	info	buy track
10.	Demonic March 03:55	info	buy track
11.	Fractal Tree 10:18	info	buy track

about

24 bit / 88k

As a MacDowell Fellow and Cultural Envoy for the US State Department, a Bachelor of astrophysics and a 30-year student of piano, Dan Tepfer has distinguished himself as “one of the moment's most adventurous and relevant musicians” (New York Magazine). In the eight years since his last full-length solo release, however, he’s composed – and coded – the future. Today, he announces the multimedia, multisensory album Natural Machines, out May 17th on Sunnyside Records.

Using Yamaha’s self-playing Disklavier piano as his only instrument, Natural Machines sets a new framework for how humans can make meaningful art by rethinking the boundaries between the mechanical and the natural, and how algorithms can help humans create something both intuitive and adherent to structure. The 11 songs, simultaneously written and recorded in single takes, are all products of Tepfer’s improvisations interacting with computer programs he’s invented. His algorithms process the music he sends them to instantly create counterparts, triggering the Disklavier’s keys to express them as sound.

Tepfer explains, “I’m not writing a piece as much as I’m writing the way the piece works. The music I love lives at the intersection of the algorithmic and the spiritual. It’s intuition working in tandem with structure. There’s a current of anti-intellectualism, anti-science — even anti-truth — running through the world today. Natural Machines kicks against that.”

The music is only half of it. Accompanying each performance are live visuals rendered by Tepfer’s playing in real time. The projections take the sonic data from the Disklavier to represent foundational aspects of each piece – pitch, dynamics, rhythm, harmony, and more – in both two dimensions and virtual reality.

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released May 17, 2019

Dan Tepfer - piano

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Dan Tepfer New York, New York

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