“If we own the process from A to B, we win”

With an opening event by FM synthesis pioneer John Chowning and workshops encouraging modular for the masses, the resurrected No Bounds festival proved once again that it’s still the place to be for future-facing electronic music fans of all backgrounds

“After such a difficult decision not to do the festival last year there were times I wondered if we would be able to come back,” muses creative director Liam O’Shea in his intro to this year’s festival programme.

Getting its start in 2017, O’Shea’s inspiration for the Sheffield-based arts event came from multi-arts festivals across Europe, like Berlin’s Atonal, and Krakow’s UnSound, two events that were renowned for taking the crossover of art and sound with the utmost seriousness. For six consecutive years, that dream was made a reality in exciting reclaimed spaces around the city – replete with workshops and chances to get hands on.

But in 2023, early ticket-holders to the by-that-point-yearly fixture were disappointed to learn that the show would not go on that year, with O’Shea telling Resident Adviser that the “cost-of-living crisis, spiralling production costs and barriers to funding” had forced their hand.

Nevertheless, the team promised they would fight hard to bring it back, and back they were this weekend.

John Chowning – the now 90-year-old “accidental” inventor of the frequency modulation technology that underpinned the groundbreaking Yamaha DX7 synth – provided an opening act that set the tone for a weekend of experimental, future-looking work.

DIY isn't dead

Focusing in on the music events, Saturday saw workshops galore for the electronically curious.

The Assembly Rooms held a beginners’ coding workshop with a difference, centred around the idea of an “algorave” – the practice of “making electronic music on stage in real time – effectively, writing instructions in code that tell a computer what sounds to play, in what order”.

"There are some artists that feel that the act of creation comes from manipulating the material. There is a side to it that is political!"

Elsewhere in the city, No Bounds partnered with the Oram Awards – an initiative that champions gender diversity in experimental music – to hold a series of workshops focusing on extending music production outreach to groups that are often underrepresented in the sphere.

Taking its usual approach of working with a different regional arts organisation each year, this year’s Oram events kicked off with a DJing workshop facilitated by The Beatriarchy, held at arts venue Gut Level.

Workshop warriors

That was followed by a synth workshop, helmed by local synth jam collective The Key of She, which enabled participants to try out synthesisers and electronic music-making apparatus and receive expert technical advice for free.

"I think mainstream music can be really alienating for some people. 200,000 tracks are released every week on Spotify"

Lou Barnell, a former Oram Award winner and facilitator of the Key of She workshop at No Bounds explained the collective's driving ethos: “DIY music provides a space to own your music from A to B and I think mainstream music can be really alienating for some people. 200,000 tracks are released every week on Spotify. As a woman or someone who is an expansive gender, I think that you can often feel like even very simple technologies are taken out of your hands.

“As a musician myself for many years I felt that during the recording process my artistic vision was never fully realised and so therefore I learned to mix and master. I created live sets as solo work and to do that I learned about electronics and electronic music production and that really changed my career. Because more people from marginalised genders are realising the same. “Well actually, if I own the process from A to B and release music on more tailored avenues to reach audiences then I win, rather than sort of just releasing across the board to no one who's going to listen. I can own that process.”

Oram Award 2024 winners – named three weeks ago here and performing in spaces around the No Bounds festival such as the city’s cathedral – were then honoured at a social, also amid the cosy confines of the Gut Level venue.

The Orams event included a demonstration of the Rebus machine that can be played by plucking electromagnetic waves, devised by music producer, label owner and Goldsmiths academic Eleonora Oreggia aka xname. This groundbreaking instrument – “not ‘simply’ a Theremin, and not a controller” – acts as an interface for a wider technology involving electromagnetic waves, and has attracted academic interest from all over the world, including from Chowning.

Asked what musicians get from becoming involved in DIY forms of music and Oreggia is clear: “There are some artists that feel that the act of creation comes from manipulating the material. There is a side to it that is political. When I use other instruments I sometimes feel that the instrument isn’t really mine. When I’m soldering, when I burn my fingers, an imperceptible perception goes into my sound.”

"When I’m soldering, when I burn my fingers, an imperceptible perception goes into my sound"

She recalls how this same approach – reaching out to others who felt the same way about toolmaking in electronic music – helped her found her own label, Nebularosa. “One day I was breastfeeding and with one hand I made a website and put out an open call for electronic lullabies – made with unconventional or self-made instruments or software. It was just fulfilling my need for good music.”