Scott Morgan, Canada. Morgan apparently appropriates his Loscil alter ego from the operation code within the sound synthesis system Csound. Although he admits he rarely actually uses Csound to create his compelling minimalist recordings, he asserts that looping and oscillating are the basics of his music-making process. Loscils debut, Triplepoint, was named after the scientific term for the temperature where a material can exist with its solid, liquid and gas phases all in equilibrium. Based on a collection of demos entitled A New Demonstration Of Thermodynamic Tendencies, the album takes the titles of its minimalist dub / techno /ambient inspired tracks from the language of thermodynamics, the science which investigates the conversion of heat into mechanical force or energy and vice versa. However, Morgan has confessed that track titles such as Hydrogen, Enthalpy, and Discrete Entrophy were lifted from a book bought in a second hand store and presented as a sort of false document on thermodynamics rather than having an explicit correlation with the music. Morgan studied music at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, facilitating the musicians exposure to twentieth century experimental composers like John Cage and Stockhausen (while, incongruously, Morgan simultaneously played drums for a series of indie bands). Drawing stated influence from contemporary post-techno musicians such as Oval and Wolfgang Voigts Gas as well as early electronic music pioneers such as Brian Eno and Raymond Scott, Triplepoints fluctuating tones and pulses are explicitly intended to drift between the intuitive and the intellectual. Perhaps echoing descriptions of Loscil's music as deep and oceanic, the follow-up Submers looked to underwater craft for its emotional and thematic coherence. Each of the track titles was named after a submarine such as Argonaut I, Nautilus, and Le Plongeur. The release closed with a touching requiem for the crew of ill-fated Russian nuclear vessel Kursk. Under the moniker of Loscil Sound Design, Morgan creates interactive music and sound design for web sites, CD-ROMs, film and video projects and ambient environments.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.