Bio

EVOL is a computer music group started in 1996. At the core of the project is Roc Jiménez de Cisneros, an artist and composer living and working in Barcelona. Occasional EVOL members and/or collaborators include Berlin-based sound artist Rubén Patiño, Danish composer and multi-instrumentist Jakob Draminsky Højmark, English sound artist Joe Gilmore, Spanish writer and sound artist Anna María Ramos, English video artist Andy Davies, and Scottish sound artist Joel Ongthorne. Their work has been released on internationally acclaimed record labels such as Mego, Entr'acte, Lucky Kitchen, Diskono, Scarcelight, Antifrost or fals.ch.

EVOL has operated under the "computer music for hooligans" motto since the late nineties, giving birth to musical forms built upon a collision of structural ideas inspired by fractal geometry, glimpses of quantum theory and rave culture. From impossible synths to glowsticks, air horns, elastic bass lines, and mathematical equations, their music displays a radical and playful approach to algorithmic composition. In 2003 the group started a series of electroacoustic pieces entitled Punani which addresses some of the main aspects of their work, namely: generative techniques, noise, psychedelia, system trajectories and the musical application of fractal geometry and other mathematical phenomena, somewhere in between Denis Smalley's concept of "spectromorphology", black magic and what Agostino Di Scipio called "functional iteration synthesis". In late 2007, the group began working with abstract graphical notation to play computer-generated Punani pieces using pressurized liquid gas horns.

Since 1997, Anna María Ramos and Roc Jiménez de Cisneros co-run the record label and artists' collective ALKU. Apart from ALKU's audio editions (which include works by Edwin van der Heide, Yasunao Tone, JLIAT, Wobbly, Kotra, Team Doyobi, Beige, Peter Rehberg and various concept-driven music compilations) they have produced installations and digital works for art galleries and museums around the world.

Horn performance. Premiere of 'Ten canisters...' (La Felpa, Barcelona, 2010)

Preliminary work for 'Hands in the air, reach for the laser' (Diapason Gallery, NY, 2010)

Scores for the 'Dual Punani' performance series for computer and gas horns, 2008

"...a razor sharp atonalism that follows its own sense of abandoned humor" (Igloo Mag)
"...a brief record that catches the listener off guard with its pseudo-musical, unpredictable nature." (Michael Tau, Vital Weekly)
"reinforced concrète!" (Joe Gerhardt, Semiconductor Films)
"...sounds like R2D2 being raped" (Graham Sharp)
"Simply too much to be true" (Vital Weekly)
"Un universo a metà tra rilettura ironica e applicazione da studiosi matematici, di dificile penetrazione e altrettanto ardua commerciabilità." (Blow Up)
"Booty, sexy music" (Pedro Soler, curator/director of Hangar)
"Generative violence" (RDL Magazine)
"If you've ever wondered what the Carl Stalling-indebted score to a circa-2109 Pixar plotless cartoon about robotic, hyper house-mice might sound like..." (Grooves)
"Punani Rubberist [...] sounds like Parmeggiani doing a soundtrack to Backdoor Sluts 9." (Han Van Den Hoof)
"...this is what I imagine Chewbacca would sound like after a heavy night on ketamine." (Stephen Sharp)