Shaun Robert director of the institute For Alien Research

Shaun Robert (1966 - ) Brixham , Devon
has been working with sound from an early age , a natural extension of play. Starting like
many with a domestic tape recorder ; years finger poised on the pause button ; tunnelling into the present & falling into deep concentration ; in a trance of coloured sound trials ; impromptu expressions processed & filtered into moments of congealed sound ; also using field recording , in voxpop & audio voyeurism , of hauntological stylings , spoken word & singing. Falling apart to come together ; feeling the next transition is about to happen , tape phasing sound on sound ; skimming back to make collusion edits ; building deep relationships with that aesthetic ; this interaction shows itself in within all his works . And the importance of sounds from analogue radio , magnetic tape manipulation can not be understated.

Cross talk & frequency drifting pulls the strings of his heart & relating to loops and rough editing , audio drop outs , a Sonic Organic. A mix of forms in an expanding wave , nudging & slating whim , composition dealt in reality , a truth of intimate confessional & intruding a microphone , the tension of triggered sounds to ape pictures of life
The work under the Shaun Robert moniker is inhabited with conventional instruments including guitar , drums , bass , violin , various keybroads , melodica , trumpet , accordion , mandolin , harmonica , stylophone and various toys ; Objects are treated like instruments & vice versa.

In 1995 the first Shaun Robert album was made , a study in a small room with limited equipment ; a piece called "Black Swing" an improvisation using 3 tape machines, an echo unit with source switching, a black swing lamp, a record player drive belt, whistle and voice, source tapes from the directions project ; now available on cd-r from https://oxidation.bandcamp.com/album/black-swing
The idea in the solo project is to be uninhibited & to ride the freeform experimental , mixing ; The Sound Objects to persuasion to speak their voice , this armature of wing walking on particular subject is a theme ; for an autodidact with no formal training https://shaunrobert.bandcamp.com
The 7”inch Single “atavist / envelop” , two tracks , both five minutes thirty , made with the vinyl medium in mind https://coldspring.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=8913

And now, let's go back into history a little bit.
The first tape album was finished Jan 1980 , on the nascent diy label indespair recordings , there were many projects ; random noise to obtuse songs ; Influences included ; Chris Watson era Cabaret Voltaire , Severed Heads , Agog ; “the track that changed my world was Timesteps by Wendy Carlos , from the Clockwork Orange soundtrack” interjected Shaun

factor X (1983 - 1994)
At the outset an anti-art project , it’s first realisation a cassette daubed in thick black gloss paint , with a small expanse of tape stuck immovable inside , over the years there were many collaborators ; Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck , TAC , AMK , Sudden Infant , Odal , Franchesca Jivoy and many friends in person and through the mail http://completelyunknown.bandcamp.com

Mutant Beatniks (1986 - 2021)
Started with the idea to produce short Music Concrète pieces , noisemusic with an edge towards outsider song form & breaks , with an ever changing line up & lots of recordings have been lost down the years, lots of tapes of unlistenable noise were made. There's a story that a party in the late eighties was ruined by a Mutant Beatniks album being accidentally selected from a pile of cassettes
http://mutant-beatniks.bandcamp.com
2008 album “Animal Farm” available on CD-R https://oxidation.bandcamp.com/album/animal-farm
2011 album “invisible” available on Cassette https://personalsoundtracks.co.uk/product/mutant-beatniks-invisible
& many side projects to numerous to name
Shaun is also the founder & director of the Institute For Alien Research
whose main output is compilations , and these are individually themed or are in Series’ , the largest of which is the 4’33” Musique Concrète series , now up to its 145 / edition , starting in 2013 and not about silence and not always strictly Musique Concrète , each volume has 15 tracks
https://ifarmusiqueconcretecompilation.bandcamp
There is also the ongoing Advert compilation , where all tracks are one minute , open to any genre
https://ifarcompfree.bandcamp.com/album/the-advert-compilation
Finally there is the rest
https://instituteforalienresearchvariousartists.bandcamp.com

View my website https://shaunrobert.bandcamp.com/