About

Overview

I compose, produce and perform music under the names Nofi, Melton, and The Silent Stars. Styles include ambient, drone, electronic noise, freeform, granular & microsound; chill-out and lounge; generative dub and minimal techno.

I define Nofi as a state of being-without-boundaries (i.e. boundless, stateless). According to Google, ‘nofi’ also translates to ‘swimming’ in Welsh and ‘satisfactory’ in Indonesian.

Details

I have created experimental and synthesized music for more than 20 years, beginning in the late 1980s with tape collage and reel-to-reel loop experiments. I moved on to computer-based sequencing, with a series of cassettes under the name Biotek during the mid 1990s and CD-Rs using the name Nofi beginning in 1997. Since 1999, I have maintained this website as a blog and showcase for my media arts work.

Recent computer-based ambient/freeform/microsound compositions as well as generative and sequenced work can be previewed here and on my Soundcloud page. Album releases can be purchased in my Bandcamp shop.

Hardware

I use an Apple MacBook Pro, sixty four greyscale monome, Akai MPD32, Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, Zoom H2N recorder, and a pair of Mackie MR5mkII monitors. I also have a few modules for a Eurorack analog modular system.

Software

I use Ableton Suite with Max for Live, Reaktor, Density & Pulsaret , K-devices Kflux, Nodal, NI Massive, Chromaphone and a number of commercial and freeware virtual instruments, plug-ins and custom effects.

Influences

Early: Vangelis, Wendy Carlos, Brian Eno, Robert Rich, Steve Roach, numerous post-punk, new wave and synth pop artists of the mid to late 1980s; ambient, new age/space music and Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) artists of the 1990s.

Recent: Amiina, Biosphere, Blue Daisy, John Coltraine, Miles Davis, Deadbeat, Debian Blak, Deepchord, Demdike Stare, Deru, Taylor Deupree, The Field, Marcus Fischer, Flying Lotus, Four Tet, Gold Panda, iamamiwhoami, Memory Tapes, Monolake, Mux Mool, Max Richter, Leonardo Rosado, Shigeto, Specta Ciera, Spheruleus, Amon Tobin, Christopher Willits, Washed Out.

Favorite Labels: 12k, Camomille, Deep in Dub, Distance Recordings, Feedback Loop, Future Sequence, Ghostly International, Hidden Shoal, Impulsive Habitat, Luxus-Arctica, Public Spaces, Resting Bell, Silent Flow, Silent Season, Test Tube, Warp, and MANY MORE.

Biography

I am a Fort Wayne, Indiana native, having grown-up in Southwest Allen County, which at the time was a mix of suburban developments, rural fields, woods and farmland. I pursued an art degree at IPFW, studying for a time in the historic downtown West Central Neighborhood under the guidance of a number of notable Fort Wayne Art School instructors. I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Indiana University with a double major in Painting and Computer graphics. Since 1995, I have worked as a graphic designer, marketing specialist, multimedia producer and creative generalist.

Since 2010, I have been 1/3 of the team that hosts Unwind on the patio at CS3 (Calhoun Street Soups, Salads and Spirits), a successful weekly evening of ambient, downtempo electronic, nuJazz and deep house music, which runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day every year. Since December, 2010 I have been managing the Fort Wayne Electronic Music forum.

Visual

While studying art in college (see my early work collections), I was drawn to the movements of abstract expressionism, dada and surrealism, artificial/virtual reality and generative art, minimalism, European typography and mid-century modern design. Some of my influences included Paul Klee, Edvard Munch, Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, Max Ernst, Mark Rothko, Mark Tobey, Helen Frankenthaler, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, Cindy Sherman, Myron Krueger, April Greiman, Rudy VanderLans, Jan Tschichold, Neville Brody, David Carson, Paul Rand and Milton Glaser. After earning my BFA in painting and computer graphics, I found work as a professional graphic designer and shifted my attention to making electronic music.

Audio

I have been involved in ambient, electronic and alternative music for more than twenty years (for influences, see From the memory vaults). In the beginning, I experimented with loops and drones, making tape collages with a simple DJ mixer, multiple cassette decks and digital effects (see archives).

This led to working with MIDI sequencing on an Atari ST running Dr. T’s Tiger Cub software, a simple keyboard, drum machine and a cassette four-track recorder with SMPTE sync box. Eventually, I switched to a Windows PC running Logic and released a number of cassette tapes under the name Biotek (see archives). During that time, I grew my studio by adding a sampling drum machine, several synths, a 16-track/4-bus mixer and more digital effects processors. I produced a number of CD-R releases using the name Nofi (see archives). From 2003 to late 2004, I was not active with music-making.

Since 2005, I have worked with software-based instruments, including Ableton Live and NI Reaktor. To share, I released portions of my back catalog on the Netlabels project of the Internet Archive. In recent years, I have posted a number of podcast mixes, works-in-progress and bonus tracks under a Creative Commons license. Commercial releases are available at nofi.bandcamp.com and newer material can be found at soundcloud.com/nofi.

Media Arts

In college, I experimented with analog photography, including using multiple exposures and slide projections. Later, I worked with 3D animation and motion graphics and digital photography. More recently, I have worked with digital collage, using appropriated images from vintage slides and sources from earlier experiments. From time to time I create sketches with Processing, an open-source programming language and environment for artists and designers. I have posted a number of scripts and applets, images and animations which find their way into my projects.