Michael Edwards

soprano and tenor saxophones, laptop and MIDI wind controller

An early taste for heavy metal led through Beethoven to the weightier end of modern composition (with oboe playing along the way). Over-exposure to computer music whilst living in California and Paris led to temporary breadwinning as a software engineer but more importantly the skills to develop a range of computer music techniques from real-time digital instruments to self-contained algorithmic composition environments. Michael lives in Edinburgh and is active as a composer and performer playing saxophones, laptop, and MIDI wind controller.

Bands: lapslap: http://www.lapslap.net
electric cowboy cacophony: http://www.sumtone.com/ecc.php

Michael Edwards: For Rei As A Doe: For piano and computer

Read "For Rei As A Doe: For piano and computer" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
December 20, 2014

Michael Edwards is a British composer, based in Edinburgh, who developed a range of musical computer techniques ranging from real-time digital instruments to self-contained, algorithmic environments. His composition for piano and computer For Rei As A Doe, was originally written for Japanese pianist Rei Nakamura and reflects long years of practicing the vipassana meditation. It is a slow and quiet piece, in which silence has an equal role to the piano or subtle, minimalist electronics. The ...

There are passages, as on “Nailed” for piano and computer, where Lapslap evoke some of the very best of the early musique concrete productions of the Pierre Schaeffer circle, wile in part of “Honk” for tenor sax, piano and electronics, the spirit of Stockhausen hovers, though some visceral Broetzmann-style outbursts justifying the title) sweep everything else aside and go some way to preparing the ears for the flurry of Industrial noise on the next track, “Hungry”, for piano and two computers. Elsewhere, in “Motor Mouth” for example, there is some good old mainstream Fire Music, with shades of Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor. This sequence of contrasts gives some indication of the group’s tactic of constantly unsettling your expectations.