Savant Flaneur

Hocketus is a new album for violin, cello, and electronics by Gage Salnikowski and Nathan Krahn. Built around a series of original MaxMSP patches, each piece creates a different relationship between the performers. Sometimes the electronics force one instrument to silence the other. Sometimes both players work together around a single sine wave. Other times the system latches onto pitches, interrupts signals, or shifts the balance of control between the musicians. Every performance is improvised within these imposed rules.

The album explores how relationships are shaped by the systems we exist within. Rather than treating improvisation as complete freedom, Hocketus places the performers inside changing environments that influence cooperation, conflict, hierarchy, and negotiation. Those same questions extend beyond the music, asking listeners to consider the social, political, and cultural frameworks that shape our own interactions. Musically, Hocketus sits somewhere between noise, free improvisation, drone, and contemporary experimental music, drawing inspiration from artists such as John Zorn, Henry Flynt, and Kali Malone. The album moves through five pieces—Interruptus, Sublimate, Hocketus, Hot Scorpions, and Provocation—each introducing a new set of electronic constraints before bringing them together in the final work.