The source material for every piece on Playthroughs is guitar: acoustic, electric or otherwise. From Sept. 2001 to April 2002, Keith Fullerton Whitman transformed raw guitar tones via laptop computer into the tracks on Playthroughs. Whitman has used ring modulators, granular re-synthesis algorithms, banks of delays and special effects in a process that owes much to Terry Riley's Time Lag Accumulator setup and Steve Reich's Phase Pieces. Technology and Whitman's careful selection of notes combine to create shimmering drones and deep waves of sound. Though the source material was improvised guitar and the procesing involved computer technology, Playthroughs reflects Whitman's mastery of composition.
In 1998, Keith formed the Reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge Recordings Limited of Cambridge record label (title courtesy a witticism of Wagner) to the release the "Attention: Cats" LP, a collection of fourteen soundbites from fourteen separate 'artists' with fourteen separate identities, ideologies, manifestos. It wasn't until the release of Hrvatski's debut album "Oiseaux 96-98" that things really started taking off...

The album was voted #9 in The Wire's year-end bests poll under the electronic music category, and did very well in both the dance and experimental music scenes (just like he hoped it would).
Live performances (once the bane of most electronic music producers) started happening with frightening regularity. The resulting tour with Fred Bigot was a huge success, leading Keith to meet and greet some of the people who has responded so well to his music in the first place, such as Mouse on Mars, who invited Keith to open for them in Boston and New York, and again a year later.
Keith provided his services as a tour mate/opening act for such luminaries as Labradford, Pan Sonic, Suicide, Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore & Lee Ranaldo, µ-Ziq, and V/VM…

*back