Submit booking, licensing, and label correspondence to keston@audiocookbook.org

John C.S. Keston is an award winning composer of electronic, experimental, and instrumental music. His work embraces the chaotic ambiguities of environmental and sensorial influences providing context within unpredictable or everyday events. His unconventional compositions convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. His compositions parallel indeterminate improvisation activating what remains immutable within traditional forms of notation driven music. Performers are empowered to use their phonomnesis, or sonic imaginations, to contribute to the work.

His music appears in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) and he composed the music for the short Familiar Pavement (2015) presented at the MNKINO Film Score Fest. He has appeared on more than a dozen albums including two solo albums on Unearthed Music. His latest release, Isosceles (2016) has drawn comparisons to the Stranger Things soundtrack. In 2011 he won the Minnesota Emerging Composers Award for electronic musicians. In 2013 he won the Jerome Fund for New Music for his project documenting binaural duets with the Singing Ringing Tree in the UK. 

John has performed and exhibited original work at Northern Spark, an all night arts festival with over 200,000 attendees (MN); the Weisman Art Museum (MN); the Montreal Jazz Festival; the Walker Art Center; the Burnet Gallery (MN); the In/Out Festival of Digital Performance (NYC); the Eyeo Festival (MN); INST-INT (MN); Echofluxx (Prague); WMC (Miami); and Moogfest (NC). In addition, Keston has worked with Atmosphere, Jon Davis, Martin Dosh, Peter Hennig, Joshua Herbst, Cody McKinney, Graham O'Brien, Adam Svec, and Nils Westdal to name a few. John resides in Minneapolis where he is a professor of creative multimedia at the University of St. Thomas and founded the widely read sound design resource  <a href="http://audiocookbook.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AudioCoobook.org</a> where he shares sounds and writes about his unique approach to composition, production, and performance.

Having cut his teeth producing warped and bombastic beats as a member of cLOUDDEAD, Nosdam has since gone on to record and release some of the most revered work in the post-millennial, abstract hip-hop world. Through his solo productions and various collaborations and remixes, the Anticon co-founder traces an indelible strain of super-saturated, no-fi weirdness that intersects British IDM, West Coast hip-hop, and ethereal drone. - Bobby Power (Creative Loafing)

Composer, performer, & neuroartist:

Who is deVon Russell Gray? A divinely guided multi-media social justice activist or a pantheistic audial alchemist? Central to his creative practice is the fundamental belief of starting from a place of "I know nothing" when approaching any new composition, performance, or creative endeavor. Embracing the idea that empty vessels receive new knowledge more efficiently, he constantly seeks a transformative death/rebirth process to expand his artistic horizons. Among other known knowns about this artist, Gray absorbs tremendous inspiration from the natural world, finding solace and reflection in the great outdoors. He cherishes moments of indulgence in eating, drinking, and merriment, and he possesses a deep appreciation for activities such as moon gazing, leaf peeping, and immersing himself in the world of cinema. In his downtime, he reluctantly participates in the commonplace mixed economy, feeling frustrated by its limitations and yearning for something different. In his uptime, he creates exceptional art while also taking every opportunity to integrate himself in tent camping adventures.

Band member of:
Gray + Hanson + Seru (debut album WE SICK [Innova] 2023)

http://fifthelementonline.com

2411 Hennepin Ave S, MPLS, MN 55405

Fifth Element is an independent Hip Hop retail store based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, founded in 1999. Beyond acting as the official Rhymesayers online and retail store, Fifth Element has also established itself over the years as one of the primary foundations for all your Hip Hop needs: CDs, Digital Sales, Vinyl, Art Supplies, Clothing, DVDs, Specialty Items, and more. 

In 2005 we expanded by adding the online store. Initially focused as the official online store for Rhymesayers products, over the years has slowly expanded the catalog to a wider range of products.

Independent since day one.

"No turntables are needed for the KFG to practice their form of sampling, dipping into a bag of Feathers, blood and bones and pulling out a whole, live chicken. 

 Imagine Jim Morrison's ghost channeled through James Brown’s guitarist, sitting in with The Ramones (featuring new bassist Stanley Jordan, now called Stanlee Ramone) to jam on a little Latin jazz.  Or don't.  That sounds like a mess, but what it sounds like… it’s a good thing.  

The band’s not a mess because it’s so tight.  A typical song for, these fast-shifting rhythm junkies:  

Drums, bass and twin guitars pound out with the Single-mindedness of pure punk, drop away to let the drums roll into funk, the bass opens up, becomes melodic while the guitars play a line in harmony, until Kane Janowsky breaks for a blistering feedback solo, setting up the leap back to juggernaut-on-speed mode. "

Dosh is following