Michael Gendreau was born in California (1961). A musician since age 6, Gendreau went along to work with several group organizations, culminating in Crawling With Tarts (1983-1998), and using this group as a medium (along with the various uses made of it by co-founder Suzanne Dycus) for work in elementalism, attention to temporal and environmental persistence, and eventually, applications of parataxis. These final studies included the use of small motors and turntable mechanisms, mostly performing with one-off transcription discs cast by others in the middle of the last century, or cut in Gendreau’s studio using a decrepit lathe. More recently, in composition and performance, Gendreau has sought to enlarge these later studies, adding physical parameters of performance spaces (as a point of reference, based on studies in physics completed in 1989 and current work as an acoustician-primarily working on low-vibration design in buildings and noise impact to optical research apparatus in the infrasonic to audible frequency range) as a language within the paratactic structures that form his compositions. This recording captures his performance at the Sonic Circuits Festival in Washington DC.
