Benn Jordan could be called a lot of things, but “complacent” isn’t one of them. At a creatively throbbing 31 years old, the bipolar electronica artist has already released and distributed music under more than ten different pseudonyms, and has pumped out a whopping 14 LPs in just the last decade.
The Flashbulb
At UMMA
Saturday, 8 p.m.
Free
The most prolific of these monikers has been the Flashbulb, Jordan’s primary outlet for exorcising his creative juices — and the label he’s deciding to wear when he plays at the UMMA for free on Saturday night.
Stylistically, Jordan is in constant flux. Never content to rest on his laurels, the electro-smith is currently in creative transit from snare-pummeling, trip-over-your-shoelaces breakcore to a more plaintive, string-laden breed of IDM (intelligent dance music) inspired by classical music.
Jordan certainly deserves his classification in the IDM genre — his music, while rhythmically arresting, has a meditative, cerebral quality that’s better suited to aquarium-like trances than ecstatic club-grinding. A multi-instrumentalist with a background in jazz guitar, he often records organic instrumentation and then filters it through electronic programs, creating a sound that’s alluringly alien without ever feeling synthetic.
He refers to his music as “acousmatic,” alluding to a French artistic movement that attempted to make sound with no clear originating cause, in order to move away from instrument-driven music. And, whether you buy this or not, Saturday night’s sure to make you think while creatively throbbing, too — free of charge.