loscil^CA

Infused with cinematic tension, ominous industrial field recordings, elongated synth tones and liquid melody, loscil's ambient sound often embodies a synthesis of life in the Pacific Northwest—an artistic inquiry into the contrast of mountains, sea and temperate rainforests encroaching on (and threatened by) grey urban existence.

Scott Morgan launched loscil in Vancouver in 1998 while a member of multimedia collective Multiplex, which curated audiovisual events at underground cinema The Blinding Light—and still playing drums and guitar in indie rock bands such as Destroyer. Partly inspired by his university studies in experimental and avant-garde music, his organic merge into evocative electronic landscapes generated the self-released scientifically poetic demo A New Demonstration of Thermodynamic Tendencies. Its ingenuity landed him on the Chicago-based Kranky label, where he's since released nine full-length albums. loscil has also contributed music to films, video games and dance projects. In the past two decades, he's expanded his sound—amplifying synth texture, smoothing delay and incorporating acoustic instruments and vocals to balance epic soundscape and delicate melody—evocative of his natural-meets-industrial west coast surroundings. His self-released Bannockburn album, clocking in at an hour long, represents an edit-less, linear, extended render of his conceptually endless 2015 generative app-album ADRIFT. Recent performances at the Gamma Festival in St. Petersburg, L.E.V. Festival in Gijon and Kranky's 25th anniversary shows featured A/V work from his follow-up album Monument Builders, which hints at his latest resonant direction.

At MUTEK, loscil exclusively premieres his newest album of densely-textured electronic compositions, Equivalents. Inspired by an abstract, expressive photographic series of the same name by early 20th century photographer Alfred Stieglitz, the tracks move beyond the original subject of the series—clouds—to become abstract equivalents to states of mind and emotion. Located in a deep-listening setting with powerful sub frequencies, the live version of Equivalents is accompanied by original visuals of cloud-based imagery and synchronized, abstract geometric patterns, creating a unified immersive experience.

Infused with cinematic tension, ominous industrial field recordings, elongated synth tones and liquid melody, loscil's ambient sound often embodies a synthesis of life in the Pacific Northwest—an artistic inquiry into the contrast of mountains, sea and temperate rainforests encroaching on (and threatened by) grey urban existence.