The Electronic Duo Building Their Own Instruments Has a Very Unusual Halloween Side Project
A Halloween novelty song isn't the most obvious introduction to an ambitious live electronic music project.
But Soul in the Machine aren't approaching electronic music in a particularly conventional way.
The duo, Georg Bissen and Henry Chang, have spent years developing instruments and technical systems intended to make complex electronic dance music performable live, rather than relying on the playback-heavy formats commonly associated with DJ performances.
Their work involves custom-built equipment, unusual software configurations and instruments designed to make the performance itself visible to an audience.
Among their creations are a laser harp and illuminated percussion instruments. Their performance history includes EDC, Ultra Music Festival and AREA15 in Las Vegas.
Their ambitions extend further still.
Bissen has described plans for an immersive production at the Sphere in Las Vegas, potentially involving theatrical direction, interactive digital environments, lasers, dancers and live instrument-driven visuals.
The proposed creative team includes Chris Wink, co-founder of Blue Man Group, and visual artist Scott Pagano. The Sphere project remains an ambition rather than a confirmed residency.
Given that background, the duo's Halloween release is an entertaining change of pace.
"License to Sl*t" is a deliberately absurd dance track about the unofficial permission Halloween gives people to dress in outrageous costumes.
The accompanying music video takes the idea much further, imagining an entire fictional world in which Halloween licenses are distributed to anyone looking to embrace an alter ego.
The duo has also created a cleaner version, "License to Strut", with revised lyrics and video elements.
At first glance, the novelty song and the group's larger performance ambitions might seem unrelated.
But both reflect a similar creative instinct: take a simple idea, build an elaborate technical and visual world around it, and see how far the concept can go.
The Halloween video leans into comedy. The larger live project leans into immersive spectacle.
Both reveal musicians who seem particularly interested in what happens when music becomes something an audience can watch, experience and interact with.
Whether Soul in the Machine eventually realizes its Sphere ambitions remains to be seen.
For now, their Halloween project offers an unexpectedly funny introduction to a duo with some unusually ambitious ideas about the future of live electronic music.
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