Electric sax

When working with the music students for the Désordre Electro-jazz project, I suggested some music to listen to, including a couple of electro-saxophone options. Here is a selection of my electric saxophone recommended listening:

  1. Gaël Horellou & NHX;
  2. Guillaume Perret & the Electric Epic;
  3. Matthew Burtner with his metasaxophone;
  4. Colin Stetson with well placed microphones around his saxophone.

NHX

I met Gaël Horellou when we arrived at the Lyon's National Institute for Applied Sciences, in the Music Studies section. He was as dedicated to music at the time as he is still now. Here is an excerpt of his NHX project:

Guillaume Perret & the Electric Epic

I like Guillaume Perret's conception of the electronically augmented saxophone, a true electro-acoustic instrument, where both the acoustic sound & the electronic audio processing contribute to the musical expressivity.

It's interesting to note that Guillaume Perret chose to work with several sidemen already present in NHX:

  • Philippe Bussonnet on bass
  • Yoann Serra on drums
  • Sound Engineer Dominique "Dume" Poutet

Matthew Burtner's Metasaxophone

Here is another kind of creative electro-sax: Matthew Burtner's metasaxophone, which you may know from the album Metasaxophone Colossus.

In the following video, he's jamming with an interactive percussion set:

New History of Warfare trilogy by Colin Stetson

Picture from Recording engineer Mark Lawson's Tumblr:

Colin Stetson is passionate about sound, and with careful microphone placement, he explores fascinating musical worlds. Below, he's breaking down the song Judges. You will hear many details, including how multiphonic split sounds are used, and how some filtering is used on the bass line. By using different microphones, he can apply different EQ parameters to the different live tracks:

Available music

For the record, here are a couple of links to amazon music store:

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