Nightlife Podcast: BT

Composer. Technologist. Sonik Architect. Electronic music savant BT describes himself as such, but titles cannot truly represent his work. Additionally, in spite of his mathematical influences, technical prowess and production skills—including ground-breaking studio techniques—the music he creates still possesses resounding beauty.

“When I’m outside sitting on the ground and looking at trees and throwing rocks in a pond—something I regularly do actually—and looking at the beautiful way a rock displaces the water and makes these beautiful displacement maps and it bounces off the sides and makes these gorgeous interference patterns, I think, ‘Wow. That’s music right there. That right there is music,’” says BT. “That is what inspires me about mathematics, the way that it’s expressed in the natural world.”

BT will be coming to Las Vegas to perform a live laptop symphony at Rain on February 20. His new album These Hopeful Machines was released on February 2 and the gig will be his first since the double CD’s release.

“I’m actually performing electronic music more live than I do in the studio,” BT says. “Taking all these bits and pieces from my records, things that I’m composing live, bits and pieces from other people’s records, and recontextualizing all of these other people’s chunks and making something new in from of everyone. … It’s really exciting and something I love doing. “

In this week’s Nightlife Podcast, the Weekly catches up with BT about These Hopeful Machines (including the incredible album artwork), his constant Tweeting with fans, and why it might be beneficial to have a group of Deadheads at his live shows.

Click here for the free MP3 download of this nightlife podcast.

Music featured in this podcast from These Hopeful Machines by BT, available on iTunes.