Keith Fullerton Whitman

Is Keith Fullerton Whitman a genius gear-head or a creative mastermind? That question is based on a false dichotomy, one through which the Boston-based experimenter has repeatedly shot holes. Equally devoted to fine-tuned techniques and far-reaching concepts, he’s made a career out of bending technology to express his rich ideas. The modular digital system for guitar and computer that he invented in 2002, which he calls “playthroughs,” has produced a wide range of compelling music. Indeed, the album he released that year under the same name remains a classic of meditative drones and thickly textured ambience.

Whitman’s musical life began in the mid-1990s, when he completed a degree in “Music Synthesis” at Berklee College in Boston. He then adopted the moniker Hrvatski (the Croatian word for “Croatian”), releasing albums of sample-based IDM on his own RKK label while penning sharp catalogue blurbs for mail-order outlet Forced Exposure. Eventually returning to his given name, he spent the 2000s crafting dense, thoughtful work, mostly for the Chicago label Kranky. He also started his own mail-order company, Mimaroglu Music Sales, which has grown to be one of the world’s prime sources for all forms of experimental and avant-garde music. And he took up an extended residency at Harvard, where he was gained access to the school’s collection of rare electronic instruments.

All of these obsessions come thru in Whitman’s music, which explores and pays homage to the history of electronic experimentation while expanding its language. 2005’s Multiples was, as he put it, “my love letter to German electronic music, musique concrète, and minimalism.” Its bluntly technical titles—“Stereo Music for Hi-Hat”, “Stereo Music for Serge Modular Prototype“, etc.—belie a sound that’s strikingly warm and human. And Whitman isn’t just a studio wizard: Lisbon, a 2006 album recorded live in Europe, showed that his “playthroughs” technique could hold up just as well in a spontaneous concert setting as in the confines of his private sonic labs. —Marc Masters