Sound and Music

Janek Schaefer is one of the UK's leading sonic artists - in fact he's the current holder of the British Composer Award for Sonic Art. He's also a guy who's pretty unstoppable when on a mission.

In our monthly magazine INTO we have a section called 'How To', where we try to pass on knowledge and skills, ranging from how to get funding to how to write for clarinet. A week ago I invited him to write something for the section, demonstrating how he works with found sounds. He liked the sound of this, but instead of just writing about something he'd done before, he decided he wanted to invent something new for the occasion, and set about building a 'pint-sized phonograph'.

Today he's been in touch to tell me that he was up all night and has succeeded! Haven't seen the results yet but will do soon, and you will too if you're a member and receive the magazine - it'll be out early next week.