Experimental Electronic Music for the Nonfiction Era
Malarki is an instrumental electronic music project that reinterprets the complexities of the natural world, in particular the tension between serenity and disharmony and the natural imbalance between creation and failure. Ranging in style from Rhythmic Glitch and IDM to Textured Dark Ambience to Intense Industrial Soundscapes, the music is a challenging and emotionally honest reflection of our place in the modern world.
Created by bay area computer scientist Patrick Coleman, Malarki combines rhythmic ambience, abstract soundscapes, experimental sound design, and algorithmic composition. His music pulls from a multi-instrumental background that includes synthesizer, organ, violin, and bass guitar, as well as his research experience in developing creative software and novel user interfaces. He regularly performs live at bay area experimental electronic music events, and releases his music on Errorgrid Records and independently.
Of his recorded work, Entropy was created in 2018 as an artistic reaction to and reflection on the impact of massive wildfires on the west coast. Uneasy, assertive, and irreverent, it ranges in tone from rhythmic ambient soundscapes to meditative drone to abrasive chaos. Mojave was recorded to capture the spirit of the Mojave desert shortly after the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake, mixing an arid environment, mountain landscapes, scattered civilization, and restless fractured ground.
X7e4, released summer 2020 on Errorgrid, is an interpretation of the complex and rapidly changing world around us. Expressing a mix of anxiety, hope, anger, grief, and optimism, X7e4 is a timely collection of rhythmic dark electronica and glitch, textured dark ambience, and fast paced industrial soundscapes.
Mirage, released in 2021 as Data Cult Audio 0195, is the first in a series of releases that contemplate the impact of rapid technological change on human culture and belief. Consequence of Tomorrow, released later that year on Errorgrid, picks up this thread of work with more direct and unrelenting intensity. Emergence, released in early 2022 takes a simultaneously more powerful and more melodic direction.
Photo at right: Matt Biddulph.
Click photos for high resolution downloads.
Photo: Patrick Coleman
Photo: Dorien Gunnels