Mike Parker

There are 2 artist with the name Mike Parker (1) Mike Parker is a solo artist from Wilmington, NC. (2) Mike Parker lives and works in Buffalo, New York, the city that was once the home of the Moog Synthesizer company. He is a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University (BFA 1988) and the State University of New York at Buffalo (MFA 1997). Currently he is lecturing at SUNY Buffalo. Over the years, his education in the visual arts has had a profound impact on the music he produces. The abstract nature of techno appeals to him because like painting and drawing, the creation of electronic music via modular synthesis is based on improvisation, never the same way twice. None of the analog synthesizers in his studio contain patch memory capabilities. Hence, every time he writes, he must create new sounds from scratch. This creative process parallels his works on paper which are derived from the human form and drawn entirely from life. His method of recording and arranging is straightforward: a track is rehearsed many times, then recorded live with no edits or overdubbing later. This methodology is important to him because it is spontaneous. Since he began the label Geophone in 1997, he has used the screen printing method to create a unique appearance for the jackets that accompany each release. He prints every jacket by hand and considers each release to be a kind of limited edition print as well as a recording. He is thankful to to all the djs who have played his tracks over the years. He hopes that his music has made a unique contribution somewhere within the timeline of techno culture.