Thomas Ankersmit
Thomas Ankersmit is a musician and installation artist based in Berlin and Amsterdam. Initially an improvising saxophonist, his activities expanded to include live electronic music and installation pieces based on architectural acoustics and infrasound. He has been performing solo and in collaboration with other artists such as New York minimalist Phill Niblock, Kevin Drumm, Jim O'Rourke, Gert-Jan Prins, Borbetomagus and Alvin Lucier since 1998. Since 2003, Ankersmit most frequently collaborates with Niblock and electroacoustic improviser Valerio Tricoli.
His saxophone work focusses on the abstract, timbral extremes of the instrument, combining sustained streams of intense multiphonic sound with acoustically amplified micro-events occurring inside the instrument.
His electronic music combines realtime performance on analogue modular synthesizers with digital editing and multitrack recording.
Often working closely with engineers and scientists, his recent performances incorporate a Serge modular synthesizer and a computer with prototype directional loudspeakers to create spots and corridors of sound and silence in three-dimensional space.
Ankersmit's few releases include a 3" solo CD, a CD-R with guest contributions by Kevin Drumm and a split LP with Jim O'Rourke. (en.wikipedia.org)
"Ankersmit is one of the latest in a line of saxophone players - from Evan Parker and John Butcher to Mats Gustafsson - who are taking the instrument into radical new territories." (The Wire)
"Jump-starting his performance on the intimidating Serge modular synthesizer, Ankersmit created a fractured, tension-filled stream of electric sound. Flicking switches and pulling at patchcords at breakneck speed, he shaped his swarm of synthesized blips and metallic jabs into a very deliberate, beautifully coherent composition. Constantly reconfiguring his electroacoustic pinpricks and distorted crackle, microscopic but detail-rich and intensely vibrant, sonic fragments skittered across the stereo spectrum like fireflies.
Continuing on acoustic alto saxophone, he slowed down the event density but maintained the heat, pairing intensely focussed energy and sonic determination with a delicate sensitivity to texture. Ankersmit's saxophone voice is an entrancing, violent mass of multiphonic, shapeshifting sound, oscillating endlessly through circular breathing, penetrating every corner of the room. Far removed from the syntax of jazz or improv, his was a spectacular recontextualisation of the instrument's possibilities, forcing it into uncharted sonic territory." (VPRO)
