Token Showcase: Inigo Kennedy Interview

Date: Nov 20th 2008 3:02p.m.

Contributed by:
mrjaymark

Here’s Inigo Kennedy on music made from disobedient machines. He’s playing the Token Label Showcase this Saturday, brought to us by Void.

CW: What was so seductive to you about electronic music?

From a very young age I had an interest in electronics, mainly due to my dad who was an electronic engineer, so almost inevitably I became fascinated about the electronics of sound, computers, software and the workings of music itself. There's a real sense of exploration. It can be very unstructured, informal and unrestricted but at the same time there's this element of precision, control and order.

CW: What's your day job?

I'm a software developer working for a very small company and responsible for a fairly large project used by global investment banks. The day job sounds fascinating, I know, but there are a lot of parallels with my music making too - creative thinking, expecting the unexpected, understanding machines and their behavior and imagining ways to use their potential.

CW: What fascinates you about machines?

They can do things we can't but that we can imagine. I'm also fascinated when they don't do what you expect - or more to the point when you expect them to behave unpredictably. When you make music with analogue equipment you can encourage chaotic or non-linear behavior like feedback or distortion. I like leaving a lot to chance when I make music - reacting to things that are not planned clearly. Capturing the accidents is really important. Machines make pretty good coffee too.

CW: Have you invented any musical devices?

I built my own mixers and filters years ago and have made my own modules for analogue synthesizers; something like Zen and the Art of Circuit Bending. I've developed quite a lot of ...