Oli Kuster, Cyrill Ferrari, Dee Byrne - Motherboard Pinball (2021) Hi Res

What if we all become cyborgs one day? Part human, part machine. What would our lives be like? What would our worlds look like? These are some of the questions Oli Kuster, Cyrill Ferrari and Dee Byrne ask in their innovative new album Motherboard Pinball, created remotely during the Covid lockdowns of 2020 an era when humans and machines arguably became closer than ever. For much of the year, the order for Oli and Cyrill in Bern, Switzerland and for Dee in London, England was to 'stay at home'. Like so many improvising musicians across the world, the three were forced to find new ways to collaborate and make music together remotely. They managed to find and celebrate freedom through networks; computer networks enabling networks of improvisation, which in turn created networks of imagined inner worlds to explore. The project began as Oli filled the Covid-induced void (as so many did) with online shopping. Small modular synth modules were delivered to his Bern studio from all corners of the globe, where the jazz pianist soon sank into hours of solo improvisation and experimentation. Oli sent these recordings to Cyrill, similarly isolated in his own studio 10 kilometres away. The guitarist selected individual tracks and improvised on them, before the two sent their files another 1000 kilometres to Dee in London, who also listened and improvised final layers of saxophone and effects. Reflecting on the music at the end of this process, the three all felt that the numerous wires, electronics, and technologies that enabled this work were woven into their improvisations. The pieces were therefore given futuristic names such as Cyborg Aerobics, Silicon Intersection, or title track Motherboard Pinball, and an epic safari through an imagined digital world began to take shape.