Recently I was lucky enough to play with the Improv group Unknown Devices: The Laptop Orchestra.
Unknown Devices is an 'orchestra' of free improvisers playing laptop computers, analogue electronics, turntables, radios, minidiscs, strange sonic devices and (even) conventional amplified musical instruments, led by renowned improviser, musicologist, and author David Toop.
It initially grew out of digital improvisation sessions run for LCC BA Sound Arts and Design students as a way of encouraging collective and collaborative music and sound making. Players are a mix of LCC Sound Arts and Design students past and present, staff and students from elsewhere in the University of the Arts.
Unknown Devices has collaborated with players from London Sinfonietta on a number of occasions and projects. Earlier in 2008 Unknown Devices: the Laptop Orchestra was shortlisted in the Digital Innovation section of the inaugural Guardian Media awards.
My first opportunity to play with the group was at an event help at CRiSAP, a retrospective look at the work of the influential London Musicians Collective.
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