Ben Neill

Ben Neill has been described as a “creative composer, genius performer and inventor of the mutantrumpet” (Time Out NY 2008) whose music “masterfully blurs the lines between electronic dance music and jazz sounds” (Billboard). Neill has recently completed his newest CD, Night Science which will be released on Thirsty Ear Recordings this Fall. Neill’s new music combines dubstep beats and basslines with the trippy, otherworldly sonic explorations of his self-invented instrument, the mutantrumpet.

This is Neill’s first recording since Automotive, released on Six Degrees Records in 2002. Since then, Neill has been creating music for film, television, stage, galleries and museums through a variety of collaborations. His projects have included Guest of Cindy Sherman, a documentary film shown widely in the international film festival circuit, Palladio, a VJ opera premiered at Symphony original music for the animated film 9-11/9-11 by Mel Chin recently screened at MOMA, and a collaboration with vocalist Mimi Goese (Hugo Largo, Moby) that will be presented at the BAM Next Wave Festival 2010. Neill’s recent performances have included: Etnafest in Catania, Italy, Serralves Festival in Porto, Portugal, New Territories Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, Guggenheim Museum DJ series, Lincoln Center Scanners Festival, Bard College Summerscape Festival, Festival of New Trumpet, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Pulse Festival of Art and Technology, Savannah, GA, Ingenuity Festival, Cleveland, and many New York City venues.

In 2004 Neill began designing a new version of his acclaimed hybrid interactive instrument, the mutantrumpet. It was completed in 2008 during an artist residency at the STEIM studios in Amsterdam, and has vastly expanded electronic capabilities. Neill’s music of the last few years has been highly influenced by his involvement with the Dub War scene in New York City. “After 9/11, it seemed like there was a major drop in progressive electronic music in New York, but the dubstep scene has brought it back in a big way. It’s exciting to see it happening again.” comments Neill. He has performed at Dub War and his music has been been played on the BBC Radio 1 Experimental show by Mary Anne Hobbs, the British DJ who many credit with breaking the dubstep sound internationally.

Neill’s redesigned mutantrumpet coincided with the emerging dubstep sound, and his new recording Night Science is the result of that convergence. Neill continues to meld the technological advancement of interactive electronic music with DJ culture as he has done in previous recordings on Astralwerks, Verve and Six Degrees. His unique instrument takes more of a central focus in this recording than in his previous releases. Many of the sounds were generated directly by the mutantrumpet, including percussion, synths and textures that would not normally be connected with a brass instrument. The album was co-produced by Eric Calvi, Neill’s long time production partner whose credits range from Afrika Bambaataa to Miles Davis to Bang on a Can’s version of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports.

Over the past year Neill has also been collaborating with LEMUR, the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, a robotic percussion ensemble based in Brooklyn, NY. Many of the tracks on Night Science include sounds from the percussion robots of LEMUR in addition to the sonic palette of the mutantrumpet.

Neill’s video collaborator Bill Jones has created a body of interactive video to accompany the music which uses the luminous black and white images of film noir as its inspiration. In their performance collaboration the dynamics and notes of Neill’s playing animate the moving images, creating an improvised narrative that is directly tied to the music. Neill continues to explore new approaches to dynamics and improvisation in live performance through his use of interactive computer technologies, blurring the lines between DJ culture and acoustic instrumental performance.