In the fall of 2026 I was invited by John Keston to perform with Mike Hodnick (kindohm) at Winona State University as part of the iDMAa conference. Mike and I had an idea of trying to compose performance in three parts - recontextualizing parts of American culture of history in this sweeping "beautiful to oppressive" piece. The three parts were:

  1. Traditional Americana - this would be a movement that began with Appalachian Spring and some found recordings. The piano and guitar components are from a musician I found on Archive.org (Robert C. Jacobson) who had been uploading recordings of his own performances for years. I found something really wholesome about recontextualizing an acoustic guitar recording and giving it some strange kind of second life.
  2. The Nixon Years - Mike owned a vinyl record of Spiro Agnew speeches. It's easy to see uneasy parallels between the 'culture war' that he was so concerned with and the rhetoric currently spoken by members of the highest levels of our political system today. We largely focused on Agnew's speech with foreboding drones and textures.
  3. The Modern Age - Agnew's speech becomes re-sequenced and processed while pounding drums kick in. This culminates in a crescendo of noise.

It was a highly rewarding challenge for both of us. Mike is well-known for his skills with live-coding performances (for example, using Tidal Cycles to sequence an Elektron Analog Rytm) but for this performance we both relied largely on two DirtyWave m8's for the sequenced material and Eurorack Modular systems for experimental and performative elements.