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UID:c2efc462-433e-410c-ad8b-dd4d1cf630d5@360exp.net
SEQUENCE:29842995
DTSTAMP:20260928T165307Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260928T071536Z
DTSTART:20261023T030000Z
DTEND:20261023T060000Z
SUMMARY:Tyondai Braxton
LOCATION:Zebulon
DESCRIPTION:**Tyondai Braxton**\n\n“My philosophy on releasing music has 
 changed a lot\, but also my idea of what it means to be an artist. The imp
 ortant part of the artist’s job is to archive what you're doing—what y
 ou're excited about\, what you're dealing with\, what you're reacting agai
 nst—putting that in a form that documents your life… At the moment\, w
 e're all looking out into the world\, dealing with the helplessness in a t
 ime of war\, media over-saturation. What's the role of the artist in that?
  I think the archiving of any particular creative idea in the moment is on
 e of the most significant things an artist can do now. Things I previously
  thought were important—’this piece means so much to me\,’ or ‘lis
 ten to how this chord arrived’—are actually much less so.”\n\nEven a
 t first blush\, Splayed Werks\, Tyondai Braxton’s fifth album\, his firs
 t full-length release since the recording of his 2018 symphonic work\, Tel
 ekinesis\, reveals itself as unlike what came before and marks the beginni
 ng of a new chapter with UK label Erased Tapes. First off\, there’s a lo
 t more music here\, 70+ minutes of pure electronics and sound design. Plus
 \, it’s divided in a way that’s out-of-step with the longer forms the 
 47 year-old composer/producer has previously imagined into being. Of the a
 lbum’s 15 tracks\, more than two-thirds are sub-five minutes.\n\nThe alb
 um brings together mostly newer works alongside pieces composed across the
  past decade\, some of which appeared previously as standalone releases. T
 o fully represent the scope of this period\, Braxton incorporates the Dia 
 / Phonolydian (2022) and Multiplay (2023) singles into Splayed Werks\, for
 egrounding the project’s long-form compositional arc. Along with “Salt
  Point” and previously unreleased commissioned works such as “4 Zones
 ” (2018) and “K Space” (2021)\, these pieces were always part of a b
 roader\, evolving body of material. Here\, they are re-edited as newer ver
 sions and remastered by the excellent Matt Colton at Metropolis Studios in
  London and woven into a continuous narrative. The result is not so much a
  compilation\, but a record that traces its own lineage in real time: a bo
 dy of work composed across years\, now fully realized as a single\, cohesi
 ve statement.\n\nWhat the circumstantial facts can’t reveal is the socia
 l\, in-real-life context of Splayed Werks\, an expansive episodic work tha
 t plants a musical flag on a turbulent period\, and on which darkness and 
 ambiance\, rhythm and light\, instinct and precision\, organic textures an
 d messy playfulness all share space. These Werks take stock of a constantl
 y evolving world\, as well as the evolutions experienced by their creator.
 \n\nIt may be a perfect album for 2026\, a time when the sonic landscape c
 ontinues to fervently embrace increasingly radical hybrids\, at once club 
 soundsystem-ready\, art-installation-leaning\, and music-school-mediated. 
 But also\, importantly\, intuitive and hand-crafted. It’s no stretch to 
 say that Tyondai had a hand in building this world. His two decades-plus-l
 ong career has seen him co-found electronic prog-punk heroes Battles (whic
 h he’s described as “a laboratory that masqueraded as a band”)\; per
 forming as a duo with Philip Glass\; write numerous electro-acoustic and c
 hamber commissions for celebrated American new-music ensembles such as Ban
 g on a Can All-Stars\, Alarm Will Sound\, Third Coast Percussion\, Brookly
 n Rider\, and Yarn/Wire\; having his “part installation\, part band” H
 IVE project appear at The Guggenheim Museum\, Sydney Opera House\, and a 3
 -night residency at Big Ears Festival\; and deliver a series of technologi
 cally ambitious\, at times orchestral works for lauded labels of electroni
 c\, experimental and future-music\, Warp and Nonesuch Records.\n\nMeanwhil
 e\, the world outside has also radicalized. Mechanisms behind the creation
 \, promotion\, distribution and broadcast of new experimental music have b
 een violently disrupted\, even as audiences for it have grown. In the post
 -COVID streaming age\, juxtapositions like “popular” vs “underground
 \,” and “album” vs “collection” vs “project” have been more 
 in-flux than ever before. The volume and acceptance of previously neglecte
 d ambient and contemporary classical sounds has been tempered by a lack of
  critical context\, seeded with algorithmic buffoonery and AI fabrication.
  Such tensions enlighten not just the make-up of Splayed Werks\, full of m
 usic recorded between 2018-2025\, but its relatively simple sonic-collage 
 forms.\n\nThe Splayed shapes and structures have also been influenced by t
 he transformations in Braxton’s personal life. That Tyondai is now a fat
 her may not come as a surprise\, but the fact that the man who rebelled ag
 ainst his formal music-school education in the late-‘90s\, has\, in 2022
  become a professor of music composition at Princeton University\, does. T
 his lifestyle change—a full-time academic gig\, escaping the careerist h
 amster-wheel beholden to commissions and collaborations\, a home studio as
  his own workshop and testing ground\, with the desire to finish things an
 d the perspective to not be precious about it—is also key to the album
 ’s sound. Braxton’s time is his own\, and his idea of what it means to
  be an artist in our time has evolved as much as the surroundings. This to
 o is what Splayed Werks is about. It may be a cliché to call each ensuing
  album by a veteran artist their “most personal\,” but it’s no stret
 ch to say this one best reflects who Braxton is in 2026.\n\nAs a portfolio
 \, Splayed Werks hews to the menu of a dance music meets minimalist electr
 onic composition\, a throughline that stretches from IDM absurdists like A
 phex Twin and Autechre\, to contemporary immersives like Mica Levi and Lau
 rel Halo. (And\, to a lesser degree\, to Braxton’s comrades and occasion
 al collaborators\, Kieran “Four Tet” Hebden\, Jeffrey Cantu-Ledesma an
 d Ben Vida.) It’s a world in which the multitude of dirty rhythms strays
  far outside club-land’s big rooms—though one can imagine expert mixin
 g hands and a world-class soundsystem transforming the dubwise lo-fi linea
 rity of “Oslo” into a psychedelic wonder\, while the interplay between
  the bass-synth and the constantly deviating shuffle on “UnFS” may qua
 lify as a leftfield banger. And its composed beatless spaces have little t
 o do with current ambient proclivities—the at-once aggressive and ecstat
 ic\, panning miniature\, “Realistic Water” sounds like power Laraaji.
 \n\nThe spectrum of Braxton’s ideas and directions reveals a voracious m
 ind at play\, changing up without overcomplicating the proceedings. Two di
 fferent pieces called (fittingly) “Multiplay” layer and connect skitte
 ring textures in beatwise whimsy\, before giving way to a droning dread an
 d organised noise\; yet each is adorned with birdcalls to balance the synt
 hetic with the pastoral. “Nimble FX” is also built on hyper-jittery st
 op-start rhythm lines\, and great big cinematic synths. All this music fee
 ls fluid\, seemingly ready to change in the moment rather than having been
  dependent on some grand design. Meanwhile\, longer\, older\, more spaciou
 s compositions like “4 Zones\,’ whose short parts assemble into a narr
 ative-free sound design\, and the closing “K Space\,” whose chaotic am
 biance gives way to what sound like Moog hits\, are more grounded\, their 
 inclusion shaping Splayed Werks into a multidimensional space\, instinctiv
 e in how it all fits together.\n\n“Every record I’ve ever finished\, I
 ’ve been shocked with what it is. I’ve never known it was finished unt
 il it was. Then you get to learn about it retroactively. If I’ve done it
  right\, the finished thing will feel like its own personality\, its own b
 eing\, its own vibe. \\[Splayed Werks\\] included.”\n\nBoletos: https://
 dice.fm/event/k6ymw9-tyondai-braxton-22nd-oct-zebulon-los-angeles-tickets
URL;VALUE=URI:https://360exp.net/events/c2efc462-433e-410c-ad8b-dd4d1cf630d
 5
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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