Genius

September 25, 2008 11:29 AM

Walter Kitundu is one of this year's MacArthur Fellows, a musician and artist who invents and builds new instruments from turntables, strings and the interactions of the elements. His recent invention, the Ocean Edge Device, uses the flow of the rushing tides to provide energy for on-board accordion and turntable instrumentation.
posted by Blazecock Pileon (7 comments total)

Kitundu is brilliant indeed. Nothing of his has been recorded for purchase or download as of yet, though, I believe.
posted by mykescipark at 12:04 PM on September 25, 2008

He is amazing. One of these days, I want to find out how he finds the time to do all of his remarkable sound art stuff and spend hours and hours and hours waiting to take remarkable photos of birds (especially raptors).
posted by rtha at 1:32 PM on September 25, 2008

Nothing of his has been recorded for purchase or download as of yet

Hopefully that changes. You can at least listen at his home page. If you "view source" there, you can you see the .mov files of the music and probably sneak a download that way.
posted by exogenous at 1:39 PM on September 25, 2008

Watching Walter play his Phonoharps is a beautiful and brain-bending experience. I love the phonokora. Here is some video of him playing it.
posted by rajbot at 2:09 PM on September 25, 2008

Wow! I love this from every direction.
posted by nosila at 3:16 PM on September 25, 2008

You can certainly sneak a download that way. In fact, when you put them all in order in your media player of choice, it smells of an album. Whee! :)
posted by nosila at 3:22 PM on September 25, 2008

That phonokora video reminds of me of Fripp & Eno. Fantastic.
posted by exogenous at 8:17 PM on September 25, 2008