Matthew Dotson spent many years of his life fiddling around with tape machines and rusty garbage in the sleepy town of Sycamore, Illinois before acquiring an undergrad degree in Media Studies from Northern Illinois University. Following this he remained at NIU to obtain a degree in Computer Music and New Media Technology under Dr. James Phelps. Currently he is pursuing a PhD in Composition at the University of Iowa where he studies with Lawrence Fritts and John Eaton in addition to assisting in the operations of the Electronic Music Studios. Recent performances of his music include Muncie, Indiana (SCI Student Conference), Romeoville, Illinois (Electronic Music Midwest), Cleveland, Mississippi (Electroacoustic Juke Joint), Gainesville, Florida (Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival), and Santiago, Chile (Festival Ai-Maako).
Artist Statement: "Most of my early computer work was chaotic and largely directionless until I rediscovered hip hop in the form of some old Public Enemy tapes. I had flirted with the notion of sampling before this, but hip-hop opened me up to the possibility of creating dense textures with layer upon layer of loops while simultaneously keeping it grounded enough to dance to. This helped sharpen my focus from creating a whole environment to creating fragments and layering them on top of one another. Thus, what resulted was a series of densely layered loops of my own and others music that was not only textural, it was danceable."
appears on: Tales from the Oxygen Den + First Disguised as Last
www.matthewdotson.com/