Analogue modular synthesizer piece from 2014. Check it out on my website at http://www.mikeolsonmusic.com/new-page

Breathing Voltages

This piece of electronic music was created using a vintage ARP 2500. All of the audio was generated on this instrument. Additional signal processing was done later in a computer. Read more, see photos and a video here: http://www.mikeolsonmusic.com/chamber-of-mechanisms

Chamber of Mechanisms

This is an experimental electronic drone piece that was created using some very significant limitations. The only sound source is a Tim Kaiser Quad Oscillator that I am running through various effects. There is no conventional musical instrument interface whatsoever. Read more and see the video here: http://www.mikeolsonmusic.com/murmurations-of-the-krell

Murmurations Of The Krell

Reposting this again after additional refinements. It features a Hammond M3 played through a 31H Leslie speaker, and a vintage Moog Model 12 modular synthesizer being driven by a Dot Com Q960 sequencer. So, two vintage instruments generating a rich vintage sound. This was my first project using this Leslie speaker, which I only recently acquired. I love how it sounds. The Moog did not go through the Leslie. I recorded it direct. Read more and see pics here: http://www.mikeolsonmusic.com/rotational-asymmetries

Rotational Asymmetries

A short experimental piece I recorded as a diversion on Inauguration Day. I was exploring performance gestures using a new pressure plate keyboard.

Modular Gestures

Fragment-based composition for 18 musicians. Check it out on my website at: http://www.mikeolsonmusic.com/incidental

Incidental 3

This was a live performance at the 2017 SEAMUS conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota. It's an analog modular synthesizer piece. Very ambient drone-like. Minimalist in character. I was experimenting with a touch plate keyboard to make subtle changes over time.

About SEAMUS: The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) is a non-profit national organization of composers, performers, and teachers of electro-acoustic music representing every part of the country and virtually every musical style. Electro-Acoustic music is a term used to describe those musics which are dependent on electronic technology for their creation and/or performance. Here's a link to their website: https://www.seamusonline.org

About the title: The performance took place in a venue at St. Cloud State University called The Quarry. Granite quarries are an important part of the history of St. Cloud, and many historic structures have been built using granite from these quarries. This, combined with the general aesthetic of the piece, is why I chose the name Resonant Quarry as a title.

Resonant Quarry

An analog modular synthesis piece. Read more about it here: http://www.mikeolsonmusic.com/new-page-2  It was created on the modular synth rig in the picture.

Alien Insects

This is the 6th movement of a large piece for 18 musicians. It features some nice guitar playing by Steve Tibbetts. You can find out more at this link: http://www.mikeolsonmusic.com/incidental

Incidental 6

( Go to my website at www.mikeolsonmusic.com to get more info about this and other pieces of music I've created. )

This is an electronic music composition which was created in 2018 using a vintage Polyfusion analog modular synthesizer. It is the first piece I’ve created using this particular instrument and I chose to restrict myself to using it exclusively as my only sound source for the piece. 

Aesthetically, this piece is a little on the dark side, (though not particularly lugubrious). It exhibits characteristics that could fall under such headings as “experimental drone” and “pattern-based minimalism”, over which sometimes ecstatic gestural outbursts emerge. Like much of my recent work, I am striving for a sense of restraint, which I am only partially successful in achieving. This ties in with the idea of limitations, which I am also very interested in. I begin every new composition by establishing meaningful limitations to work within. For this piece my limitations were that the piece must be all electronic and use only the Polyfusion as it’s sound source. This has resulted in a finished piece which unabashedly celebrates the sound of electronics and the sound of the Polyfusion modular synthesizer in particular. There is nothing in this piece which is trying to sound like an acoustic instrument of any kind. It is electronic and it sounds electronic. The only acoustic sound is the sound of the switch at the very beginning of the piece. This is literally the power switch for the Polyfusion being thrown. The hum which follows is the actual hum of the Polyfusion’s power supply. I mic-ed it and recorded the sound of that hum. Though this is not an audio signal being produced by the instrument, it is an audible hum which is in fact being generated by it. So it could be said that the piece starts with the physical sounds of the electronics, and then transforms into a sonic world that those electronic components produce as audio signals.  (more on the website)

Anachronistic

www.mikeolsonmusic.com 
I decided to spend my 4th of July this year (2019) engaged in what I consider to be a patriotic act of political protest. I created a short piece of music (or sound art if you prefer), which uses as its source material, the spoken words or Donald Trump. My objective was to create the whole thing in one day. Well, I didn’t quite make it and ended up doing an additional five hours of tweaking. That being said, the limitations of using only Trump’s voice for source material and completing the piece in a single day were stimulating, (and I’m glad I won’t be spending weeks listening to his voice with a high degree of focus).

IntuitiveMike

Popular tracks