Arktet

Arktet is a new trio from Melbourne/Naarm, recently formed by three virtuosos in their fields: Robert Vincs on woodwinds, Niko Schauble on drums and Adam Nash on generative virtual environments. They came together to push the envelope of improvisatory music practice, based around Adam's 'generative virtual environments'. These are playable audiovisual environments, like game worlds, coded to generatively compose on the fly, different every time they're played. Rob on saxes and flute, and Niko on drums, respond to and build upon these environments, using their immense experience in improvisation to create immersive new worlds of sonic experience.

On their first album, Subtle Tantra, Arktet push experimental music into new territory by using generative composition as an instrument in the improvisation process. The result as heard on Subtle Tantra is a warm and deep unfolding of slowly evolving sound worlds, building new vocabularies of musical experimentation in conversation with jazz, contemporary classical and electronic music while coming to delightfully unexpected conclusions.

Subtle Tantra was recorded live in the studio by Niko Schauble at Pughouse Studios in January 2023. The pristine and seamless recording, mixing and mastering of the album harmonises the myriad of influences into a trance-like listening experience.

Member Bios

Robert Vincs (Woodwinds) is a musician, composer, improviser and academic specialising in solo interactive and electro-acoustic music making and theorising new ways of addressing improvised music.  In 1988 he won the B.P. Quiet Achiever Award for his early work in Artificial Intelligence in Improvised Music and continued his creative work looking to develop and refine his embrace of interactive technology. Rob has collaborated with many leading Australian and international contemporary artists including; Barney McAll, Polymorphic      Orchestra, David Jones, Simon DeHaan, Judy Jacques, Chloë Sobeck, Vijay Thillaimuthu, Ronny Ferella, Sunny Kim, Varden Ovsepian (US), Kenneth Nash (US) Raff Sudan (Swiss) Hyun Suk Lee (Sth Korea), Melbourne Ballet Company, Seoul Contemporary Dance Theatre, Kim Vincs, and Dianne Reid to name a few. In 2017 he was invited to tour and perform with the International Society of Improvised Music in their 10th         anniversary celebration in Sth Korea with workshops and special performance at the SORI Festival.

Niko Schauble (Drums) is an award-winning drummer, composer, producer and audio engineer, with a practice spanning the full range of contemporary notated and improvised music.  As a performer, Schauble has collaborated with many of the world’s leading jazz artists, iincluding Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Sam Rivers, Lee Konitz, Dewey Redman, Enrico Rava, Greg Osby, Arthur Blythe, Palle Mikkelborg, Paul Grabowsky, Trilok Gurtu, Karaikudi R. Mani, Deborah Conway and Archie Roach. His work as a musician and composer is documented on over 60 albums. Niko’s compositions span film and television scores, ballet, interdisciplinary works, chamber and symphonic music, with major commissions from the Australian Art Orchestra, West Australian Ballet, Radiosinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Queensland Festival, the Berlin Jazz Composers Orchestra and recently the University Orchestra Ulm. In 2012 Niko opened Pughouse Studios, a professional recording studio in Melbourne, Australia, producing more than 150 albums to date. Niko's awards and nominations include: 2020 Apra Amcos Nomination (Luminary Award), 2019 Finalist Apra Amcos Art Music Awards, 2005 Finalist at Annecy Film Festival, 1997 Honorable Mention Julius Hemphil Awards, New York, 1996 1st and 2nd Prize ‘Tage der leichten Musik’ des SFB, Berlin, 1992 Australian Jazz Award/Best Drummer.

Adam Nash (Generative VIrtual Environments) is an internationally recognised digital artist, composer, programmer and performer. He works with the digital as site of playable art, using the web, game engines, virtual environments, generative and procedural programming, data and motion capture, artificial intelligence, synthetic evolution, audio, vision and live performance. His work has been presented in galleries, festivals and online in Australia, UK, Europe, Asia and The Americas, including SIGGRAPH, ISEA, 01SJ, NGV, ACMI, the Venice Biennale, and the National Portrait Gallery of Australia among many others. He received the inaugural Australia Council Multi-User Virtual Environment Artist in Residence grant. He has been artist in residence at Ars Electronica FutureLab and the Australian Antarctic Division. He  was shortlisted for the National Art Award in New Media at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. He won the SIGGRAPH Web3D Art Jury Prize hree years running. He has worked as composer and sound artist with Wild System, Company In Space (AU) and Gibson/Martelli (UK),  exploring the integration of motion capture into realtime 3D audiovisual spaces.

Gear

Saxello, Tenor Saxophone, Alto Flute, Drums, Generative Virtual Environments