JASON KAHN
JASON KAHN’s concerts for voice and an electronics use a set-up of modular synthesizer, mixing board, electromagnetic transducers, contact microphone, reverb tank, radio and field recordings made in each city on his tours. During his concerts Kahn grabs open synth cables with his hands, placing his body in the circuit flow of a chaotic feedback system that can cause the synthesizer to overload or verge on momentary collapse.
Kahn then sets his voice against the electronics, using extended vocal techniques that at times mirror the sounds coming from his mixing board, blurring the lines between the acoustic and the electronic. Influences for Kahn’s vocal work span the spectrum from Henri Chopin to Son House, but primarily he finds inspiration for using his voice in the electronic noise and chaos of his system.
In the end, each of Kahn’s performances are different, not only because the music is improvised but also because the source material draws on local field recordings, radio and the electromagnetic environment of each place he performs. Kahn reacts directly to both the acoustic and social space of every space being played in. And for this reason he finds touring vital to the further development of his work, drawing on the energy and stimulation of each new situation.
Jason Kahn was born 1960 in New York and grew up in Los Angeles. He lived in Berlin from 1990-1998 and moved thereafter to Switzerland. He has been based in Zurich since 2000 where he works as a writer, musician and artist. Since 2011 he’s been running his own Editions label and has had over 200 releases published on other labels around the world.
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