A sonically rich, formally experimental, and wickedly playful new album from CZiGO, 'Actant Theory' releases on Machine Records on 6 September 2024 in both digital and limited edition CD formats.

We last heard from CZiGO aka Mark Donlon back in March 2023, with his beautiful album release 'Aishroo', which was made while he was living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand. Mark is a jazz pianist, composer, conductor, educator and music producer. He’s released techno/electronica albums on Sermak Music (sermakmusic.bandcamp.com) as well as jazz albums on the F-IRE and Fuzzymoon record labels.

We caught up with Mark, who has relocated back to the UK, to talk about his new music.

Machine: Tell me a bit about what your new album ‘Actant Theory’.

Mark: On this album I'm exploring how the use of improvisation interacts with chance and probability and how it can connect with the structured, ‘composed’, electronic production elements in a musical narrative and vice-versa.

My starting point was programming pre-determined musical elements in the DAW (Ableton) driven through algorithms in step sequencers and probability generators. This initiated musical events which act independently from my own improvisational choices in real time, as I improvised in response to them.

These are the computer-generated ‘Actants’ of the title - a reference to Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory. The computer in effect becomes another improvisor. I wanted it to function almost as the opposite process to that at work in George Lewis’s famous ‘Voyager’ system, in which the programmed computer triggers MIDI sounds in response to human improvisers.

I was also interested in exploiting the possibilities offered by various MIDI control surfaces, as well as a laptop computer. These allow elements of sound design, such as manipulating waveform and effects parameters in real time, to play a significant part in improvisation. It’s not unlike some live modular Techno performances.

Machine: What inspired you to take this approach?

Mark: I originally developed these workflows when I was still living in Aotearoa New Zealand. I had some planned live collaborative performances in Norway and the UK in mind. However these performance projects became recorded projects as a consequence of strictures on travel and human interaction during the Pandemic and its aftermath.

Since the aspect of live performances was out of the picture, editing and production techniques became significant and became a further actants in the creative process

Machine: It sounds like it’s important for you to keep the DAW in its place?

Mark: Yeah you could say that. Improvisation has been the major focus of my research activity as an academic and musician.

Notwithstanding all of this, the aim is primarily just to make some cool tracks! To design beautiful and fascinating musical sounds, ideas, and rhythms. The product is far more important than the process.

Machine: I’ve found that to be a shared attitude in electronic music-making, in contrast to some of the ideas I’ve encountered in academic art practice. Asking “Does this sound good on (or adjacent to) the dancefloor?” when you know nothing about even who made it, it’s baked into the culture.

Mark: The beat-making and melodic/harmonic aspects in the music, draw on many of my favourite influences as sources of inspiration, such as Techno, Jazz, Free Improvisation, Cuban music, Dubstep, Sufi and Ottoman Classical Music.

The influences of electronic artists including Jon Hassel, Charlotte de Witte and Jeff Mills play a big part and are easily discernible.

Machine: I know from your previous album on Machine that you are interested in language and different linguistic sounds. What is the story with the track names on this album?

Mark: My preoccupation with things Turkish and Cuban is reflected in some of the titles: for example (respectively) ‘Yakamoz' and ‘Itulu’. The Ottoman-Turkish word ‘Yakamoz’ refers to the reflection of moonlight, sunlight or other lights, shimmering on water. In the Cuban Santeria religion, ‘Itulu’ refers to funeral rites - somewhat akin to a lament, that aim to calm the spirit of the dead.

Machine: What’s next for CZiGO?

Mark: I have two new things in the pipeline at the moment. One is a set of three pieces that are very improvisation-based, as well as being purely electronic. These are essentially little tone poems or sonic pictures that encapsulate moods or mental/emotional images. The title track of this EP is ‘Acaran’, which is a Sanskrit word, possibly best translated here as ‘performative’.

The other project I have on the go is essentially an album exploring the threads of Techno, which always feature very highly in my musical output. This has the working title ‘Techno Feudal’, which is kind of cute title for a Techno album, but is also a reference to a newly published book by Yanis Varoufakis, titled ‘Techo-Feudalism. Varoufakis is an important (some even may say controversial) commentator on societal and economic matters in the world at present.

This is music that belongs to the world of dancefloor - though I may do an alternate version of the album that is a more abstract re-mix of the tracks - aimed at listening in private, with the lights low and the volume turned up. Kind of like stuff I used to play on the ‘Deep’ show on Radioactive.

I’m not really trying to make any kind of social comment in this work. I’m interested in trying to trying to incorporate concepts arising out of Medieval and Early European music in this album, with classic techno idioms and stylised, processed types of Techno music The aim is to explore rather more elusive and thought-provoking kinds of beats but maintaining the essential dancefloor qualities that make Techno such a compelling form of music. You could maybe call this Techno for grown-ups, which is the way I like to think of my Techno music anyway!