"I improvise with the tenor, alto, and soprano saxophones as well as with the computer: this is used as a sound processor (mainly live granular synthesis), generator, and instrument.

"I'm a composer and performer specialising in computer music, in particular the development of composition algorithms for instrumental music and the integration of these within similarly generated computer-processed sound and live electronics structures.

"I was born in Cheshire, England, in 1968. I studied oboe and composition at Bristol University with Adrian Beaumont (1986-91) and privately with Gwyn Pritchard, then computer music with John Chowning (the inventor of Frequency Modulation (FM) Synthesis) at The Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University, California (1991-96).

"It was there that I learned to programme computers, earning my daily bread as a Consultant Software Engineer in Silicon Valley when I ran screaming from academia after ten consecutive years and four degrees. (I worked at Canon Research Center America (1996-97) and developed a Document Recognition System that is in use in several US hospitals.) After that I took up a Guest Professorship in Music and the Internet at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg (1997-2002) i.e. I ran screaming back to academia.... I'm currently a Reader in Music Technology at the University of Edinburgh where I'm Director of the M.Sc. in Digital Composition and Performance.

"You'll find my pieces listed on sumtone.com, along with access to scores, mp3s, programme notes, and the like. I'm also active as an improvisor on laptop, saxophone, and MIDI wind controller. You'll find even more information about me on the site should you need it.

"I play and record with the free improvisation groups: lapslap and electric cowboy cacophony.

FrImp? Free Improvisation, the chaotic primordial soup from out of which emerges the most vital music unimaginable.

Discipline & freak out, group consciousness & individual ego, skill, accident, intellect, animal, Yin & Yang & the bits in between, seeping through cracks in musical genres, absorbing and transforming styles and technologies and looking neither forwards nor back but straight in the face and kissing the face and watching the face grow old and die and loving it all, hallelujah!

We give our time freely to the running and management of this website. If we ever cover our costs and actually make a profit we shall invest that profit back into Free Improvisation and support musicians in the recording and production of their art.

The team:
Jamie Smith -The musician.
Paul Drewett -The technician.

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'What is it?' you ask.

A description is a limitation. To ask what it is, is to not have understood. You have to listen, not read. You have to hear, not see.

The human brain is a three pound blob of greyish organic material that can conceive of a Universe a hundred billion light years across. The pattern of sounds that create music to be appreciated by this grey matter has been controlled and stifled by cultural pressures and the brain was easily bored by the repetitive noises.

When musical notation limited the aural landscape degrees of originality and true expression were suffocated. Distinguishing music from noise depends entirely upon context and perspective. As explorers butted against cultural walls the boundaries were eventually and inevitably breached. With recording and mass production came an accelerated process of cultural sophistication and musicians escaped entirely from all formal constraints.

Now listeners are free to make what they will of the sounds they hear. Music need no longer feed the brain with just a satisfying pattern fixed by cultural experience. Free improvisation can communicate a transcendental experience with no reference to correlated sequences of sound.

From one greyish organic blob almost directly to another. It invites interpretation because it just is.

No explanation neccessary. I hope that explains. (Close)

As you browse the site you can add albums and podcasts to your download list.

When you are ready, you can go to the download page, where you can download your MP3s immediately. You can also choose to have download links emailed to you for download later (or posted to you on a disc).

If any of your downloads need to be paid for you will first be transferred to PayPal. After making payment you will be taken to the download page. (Close)

We can even send your chosen MP3 files to you in the post. This is very handy for big downloads lists or if you suffer from a unreliable or slow internet connection.

Simply click the 'Send Me My Download List' button at the bottom of the Download List page. You will see the option added to your list.

There is of course a very small charge for this service to cover our time, the disc, packaging, postage and insurance.
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We are always looking for musicians with rare/deleted/hard-to-come-by or previously unreleased recordings/video that they would like to sell/give away through the site. Ideally these would be recordings that have either been self released of that have no tie to a record label (other than that of the artist). Maybe a short run of CD-Rs that you only have a few remaining copies of or some live recordings that have never been considered for release due to expense - remember, we can be accessed all over the world, so if you have an audience, chances are someone will want to hear your music and maybe even pay you for it!
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We welcome enquiries and are happy to answer questions about any aspect of this site.

You can use our online contact form or if you prefer, you can email us direct using the following email address:

INFO {at} FRIMP .{co}.{uk}

(Please excuse the non-standard formatting but this prevents email scrapers from automatically adding our email address to spam lists.)
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