Roger Dean
Roger Dean's piano and computer improvisations move from lucid jazz homage to dense electroacoustic layering, often with austraLYSIS. Sensitive touch meets algorithmic process, blue notes and dance rhythms surviving inside radical sound design.
With austraLYSIS he pits acoustic instruments against live computer interaction: long-form free improvisation beside composed electroacoustic pieces, saxophones skittering over synth fields, piano folding into stone sounds. Solo, he can ride a boogie left hand for Harry Miller or open the instrument's interior; later work stacks real-time processing until the groove becomes a sonic morass and still holds tension. Collaborations with Hazel Smith braid spoken text into processed soundworlds. The music risks emotion without releasing the drama of interplay.
Artist's website: australysis.com
Roger Dean is featured on the following titles
Multi-Piano: 1978–2012
It’s a rare thing to showcase a performer’s work across forty years. This two-CD set does just that for Roger Dean, whose serious career in improvisation spans performances and books on the subject.
Composer
Recording Engineer: Recorded By
Roger Dean is featured on the following titles
Acouslytic
Acousmatic and electroacoustic works from Roger Dean and Hazel Smith with austraLYSIS. Dean's music and Smith's words form a distinctive soundworld that challenges, inspires and intrigues.
Composer
Producer: Producer
Credit: Cover
Present Tense
An unusual release of music improvised live with computer-generated improvisations. Sandy Evans is astonishing here. Roger Dean has provided most of the germinal material.
Composer: improvisations (except track 3)
Producer
Performing as austraLYSIS
austraLYSIS works across acoustic free improvisation and live computer interaction, pitting saxophones, piano and percussion against electronics in music that holds tension, risks emotion and never settles into one style.
History Goes Everywhere
austraLYSIS Electroband occupies a special place in Australian music. Formed in 1990 by Roger Dean, this trio has carved out a unique territory, pitting acoustic instruments against computer-generated material in live performance.
Composer
Sonic Stones
Sonic Stones presents two sides of austraLYSIS’s computer-mediated practice. PianoStones is a fully composed digital work that transforms natural stone sounds and pre-recorded piano by Dean into a continuous sonic field.
Composer
The Next Room
An unusual two-CD set of free improvisation: each disc holds one continuous hour-long piece. Tony Buck, Roger Dean and Sandy Evans are sharply different musical personalities, yet the long-form dialogues hold together.
Composer
Windows in Time
austraLYSIS is the brainchild of Roger Dean, and exists in several incarnations, including a live electronics band. Here they are in their standard chamber music format and have chosen a programme in which the linchpins are Xenakis and the music of New Zealand composer Lyell Cresswell.
Composer
Contributor: Art Direction
Moving the Landscapes
austraLYSIS appears in Australia in several guises, united by pianist, bassist and composer Roger Dean. All involve improvisation; this recording presents the acoustic face of the group.
Compositions by Roger Dean also appear on
Uluru: New Solo Cello Works for David Pereira
Twelve new Australian solo cello works written for David Pereira, celebrating the handing back of Uluru to its traditional Indigenous owners. Responses range from didgeridoo-like sonorities in Hopkins to the modernism of Dean.
A Day in the Life of a Clarinet
Peter Jenkin presents the clarinet in its many modern guises, equally at home with Alban Berg, multi-tracked Bach, klezmer, tango, jazz and electronics.
Composer: Composed By
Roger Dean also appears on
Harbour
This CD features the remarkable voice of the septuagenarian tenor Gerald English in works written especially for him by Andrew Ford. A star-studded gathering of musicians accompanies him and also plays three solo works.
Roger Dean is a member of
austraLYSIS
austraLYSIS works across acoustic free improvisation and live computer interaction, pitting saxophones, piano and percussion against electronics in music that holds tension, risks emotion and never settles into one style.