Baker Artist Portfolios

For over 20 years, Jeff Carey has performed synthetic noise music with a physically controlled software based instrument of his own development called ctrlKey.  He is an avid electro-instrumental improvisor and is a composer of multichannel acousmatic music. His music is abstract and sculptural, full of shapes and gesture, colored by noise bursts, percussive glitches and shifting resonance. His work often incorporates extramusical elements like strobe lights, lasers and computer animation all under the constructive control of his electro-instrument to explore the space between visceral and the external embodiment of sound. He builds physically controllable custom software synthesis instruments and is interested in exploring immediate and flexible sound production with virtuosity in electronic music. “...an exhilarating firestorm of glitchtronica and light and laser displays, reinforced by intense vibrations channelled through the backs of the chairs. As the music is heard via headphones, the nature of the experience was a curious mix, both individual and part of a group, with differing levels of perceived intimacy; there were times when i felt the roller-coaster effect, enjoying the ride all the more due to being in the company of others, while at other times i felt entirely alone, often moving between these states in the blink of an eye.” – 5:4 editor Dr. Simon Cummings on the installation Precursor to Hypercube “His work resists easy pigeonholing to square categories. Particularly so, as their sounds seem to exists primarily as a result of direct physical movement and effort, more so than through any adherence to specifics of genre or aesthetics. This is not the studied physicality of effortless virtuosity, nor the outpouring of raw punk anger, but a carefully crafted collision of skill, physical force and intuition.” – Bjørnar Habbestad, Only Connect Artistic Director "He's acting on raw instinct here - he refuses the clinical approach to programming software or composing music, and strives to throw himself bodily at his machines, replacing all mechanical moving parts with human flesh, blood, and bone. In pursuit of this all-organic goal, virtually everything else is jettisoned, starting with recognizable notes or melody." – Sound Projector magazine editor Ed Pinsent on the CD Impulse Carey's work has received support from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance Rubys Artist Grant, the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award, and the New Media and Audio Grant from The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and The National Endowment for the Arts. Internationally, he was awarded funding from Norwegian arts organizations, including Norsk Kulturåd, KulturKontakt Nord and Bergen Kommune. He has evolved his custom software as an artist in residence at USF Verftet in Bergen, Norway and refined his electro-instrumental music practice through several residencies at the Studio for Electro Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
 Jeff Carey has performed throughout the US, Japan and Europe at music festivals NuMusic (Stavanger Norway), Night of the Unexpected (Amsterdam), Ekko Festival (Bergen Norway), Ende Times Liberation (NYC), Only Connect (Oslo, Norway) and Recombinant Festival (San Francisco) to name a few. He has been tour support for Matmos (Thrilljockey), Hijokaidan (Alchemy Records) and Torche (Relapse Records). He has been an active member of the Baltimore/Washington music scene for over a decade.  He organizes concerts in Baltimore for touring electronic musicians and is a co-curator of the High Zero Festival for improvised and experimental music and for the Diffusion Festival for electronic multichannel music. During the ’20/’21 pandemic he created a virtual concert platform to present synthetic, mechanical and experimental noise music on twitch.tv/2xmono in the form of two weekly shows that ran from January until the end of April:  Executive Summary is a show for very short (5 minute) performances on Monday mornings at 9 am and Imaginary Network Topologies Season Two for longer performances on Friday nights.  From October 2020 to present there have been 44 shows with 270 performances from international artists totaling more than 90 hours of music. Jeff Carey has a Bachelors of Science in Audio Technology from American University in Washington D.C. and studied computer music at the Institute for Sonology, Koninklijk Conservatory in The Hague, The Netherlands. Index[off], released on July 3rd 2020 is only available via https://jeffcarey.bandcamp.com/album/index-off http://jeffcarey.foundation-one.org https://jeffcarey.bandcamp.com http://imaginary.topologies.net