Adam Jansch

music technology | composing | performing | beyond sonic art | electronics | programming | graphic design | photography | web design

Music technologist, composer, performer, sound artist, media artist, electronic hardware builder, software programmer, graphic designer, photographer, web designer... these terms offer some description of the elements which make up the creative practice of Adam Jansch. Adam however prefers the term ‘multi-creative’ – a conflation of the pertinent aspects of those term mentioned along with several other.

Son of legendary folk guitarist Bert Jansch, Adam has been heavily involved in music for most of his life, learning when young and going on to study music technology after leaving school. This connection with technology has seen Adam branch out of purely musical pursuits, mixing them with elements of other artistic and technological practices. The artistic result is an evolving amalgam which might be called music, sound art or media art – or perhaps something completely different.

Perhaps Adam Jansch’s single most significant background is in music technology, an area he first experienced after dabbling with C-Lab Notator on an Atari in the 1990s. Having studied extensively in the discipline for over a decade music technology continues to inform Jansch in his creative practice, even as he moves away from purely musical outputs.

Jansch's skills in music technology include experience with Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Nuendo, Max/MSP, Pd and Supercollider. His education in music technology continues as he studies for a PhD in music composition at the University of Huddersfield.

Truth be told Adam Jansch doesn’t see himself as a composer. However, a significant part of his previous practice can be linked to music composition - it can be seen most clearly in the music he produced at the University of Huddersfield and at Goldsmiths College for his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees respectively.

In these pieces it is possible to discern elements of musique concrète, pop writing and algorithmic techniques. The two highlights from this period have to be the 30-minute experimental electronic album Passage Through Mysterious Forests, and Jansch’s first multi-channel piece, Vortex.

Music performance can be seen as one of Adam Jansch’s secondary musical activities; however it has backed up his core musical activities significantly: his performance skills have seen service in a variety of bands, in his computer-based song writing work, in a session musician role and, more recently, in a laptop improvisation group.

His main instrument is bass guitar; he has also used his vocal skills for his solo projects. His music performance history includes involvement in bands 77th Cow, Bellefield and The Nursery Crymes; he also performed on three of his father’s albums, appearing at live shows at London’s Jazz Café and Queen Elizabeth Hall. Recently Jansch became a member of the laptop improvisation group HELO.pg.

An exploration beyond sonic art is underway by Adam Jansch, prompted by his PhD research at the University of Huddersfield. Pieces like I am... and nullTV analog point towards an expansion in the range of artistic outcomes from Jansch, with elements of sound art and media art being embraced alongside his previous sonic focus.

Jansch was introduced to electronic circuit building at secondary school and has kept up the practice in the intervening years. His electronics skills now form a more fundamental aspect to his artistic practice than mere cable repair - in combination with his programming background it has provided him the custom electronics that made pieces like The Chaos Engine and Travelling possible.

Jansch has built up a base of programming skills over the years since his undergraduate degree, where he was taught various flavours of C. More recently he has employed these skills in the creation of several pieces: dieTunes was coded as a Cocoa application for Mac in Objective-C; The Chaos Engine and Travelling use Arduino-based electronics, and so were programmed using Wiring.

The progression of his PhD research should see new audio pieces coded in Cocoa for iPhone and Java for the Android platform, so keep your ears to the ground!

Although the majority of Jansch's practice is based in sonic art he also has a keen interest in graphic art, having created computer-edited images for as long as he has been involved in music technology.

This practice has spawned album covers for all of his solo projects and the last two albums released by his father - Edge of a Dream and The Black Swan. He has created promotional materials too: these include event posters for in tones: organ/cassette/synthesizer and in tones: organ/radio/television/internet, and logos for Week of Speakers 2009 and 2010.

Another part of Adam Jansch’s visual arts practice is a continuing passion for photography. To this point in time Jansch has relied on an Olympus OM30 35mm SLR given to him by his aunt, and has invested in a small collection of prime lenses.

When out with his camera Jansch tends towards capturing aspects of the environment around him, looking for interesting compositional constructs and textures. So far he has kept his photography separate from his sonic art, seeing it as an escape from his main artistic practice. He keeps a collection of albums at his Picasa page.

As with many of his other technological skills Adam Jansch first encountered website design during his further and higher education. Since learning the basics he has been largely self taught, picking up skills in (X)HTML, CSS, PHP and Javascript through the evolving designs of his own website.

Despite Jansch building this base of web design skills he does not actively seek work in web design, feeling that a website is a constantly evolving entity that takes a great deal of effort to focus on fully – keeping his own website up to date is demanding enough, so supporting someone else’s is out of the question.