JOSH SEMANS
Josh Semans is an ondes Martenot player, composer, and producer based in the north-west of England. His work is uniquely textured, employing a range of instruments, sound-sources, and processes. A keen improviser, his creative process is a cocktail of exploration, repetition, and abstraction.
He works tirelessly to bring the ondes Martenot - one of the earliest electronic musical instruments, invented by French cellist and wartime radio operator Maurice Eugene Louis Martenot - to new audiences, and is a fierce advocate for the preservation, proliferation, and publication of the unique and seldom heard musical instrument.
Following his debut album and two EPs, Hidden Notes Records released Semans’ sophomore full-length album; ‘To Will A Space Into Being’ on September 15th 2023 as a limited edition transparent vinyl, which comprises ondes Martenot, Juno 6, and a string quartet, represented visually by manipulated AI imagery.
Hidden Notes Festival Vol.3 saw Josh’s first full solo performance of ‘To Will A Space into Being’. He has also performed with Charles Hazlewood and Portishead’s Adrian Utley, performing improvised drone works inspired by the writings of Hildegaard Von Bingen, and been enlisted as pianist and synth-player in Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres’ latest performances at The Barbican and Bristol’s St. George’s Hall.
Josh has also started releasing a series of work named ‘Emergency Programming’, refering to a sort of failsafe system, usually seen in radio and television stations. In order to fill the dead air between bigger, higher concept, 'full-length' releases he has activated an Emergency Programming system of his own and the 1st edition is a set of short piano pieces recorded around the time of his daughter’s birth in 2024.
In the studio, Josh has recorded for the likes of Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka) and Alex Baranowski, produced a bounty of reworks for artists such as Garreth Broke, Larkhall and Simeon Walker, and worked in collaboration with Spitfire Audio in the creation of the LABS Ondes Musicales virtual instrument.
Josh has created a world that is entirely his own; combining the retro-futuristic sound of the vintage Juno 6 synthesiser; the classically-coded string quartet; and the otherworldly ondes Martenot - one of the earliest electronic instruments, born in the trenches of the First World War.
Inspired by the ethics and intentions of brutalist architecture, ‘To Will A Space Into Being’ expresses a reverence for its raw materials, the space they occupy, and the world they create.
Buildings like the New Street Signal Box in Birmingham, The Barbican in London, and the pumping station on Rotherham’s Marsh Street make no attempt to hide their means of construction. ‘To Will A Space Into Being’ channels a similar honesty of materials. The hiss and warble of old tape machines remind the listener of poured concrete taking on the texture of the wooden boards used as moulds for walls; interlocking floors and elevations are represented in repeating, polymetric string arrangements.
Josh was led to ideas of retro-futurism; visions of the future from decades ago. The now 40-year-old Juno 6 is at one point on this timeline, centuries ahead of the instruments of the string quartet. Then, the ondes Martenot navigates the years of space between them - oscillating between past and future effortlessly.
Reminiscent of the soundtrack sensibilities of Vangelis and John Carpenter, the outsider explorations of Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire, and the organic synth stylings of Jon Hopkins and Rival Consoles, the electronics of To Will A Space Into Being are adorned with cinematic string arrangements and ethereal ondes Martenot lines. Suspended textural interludes are woven between bigger, bolder setpieces.
The artwork for this album has been created by Miriam Bean as part of her ‘These Places Do Not Exist’ project. Working collaboratively with artificial intelligence, she carefully prompts imagery into existence to then be curated and manipulated using a variety of digital and manual techniques. Almost 300 versions of the album artwork were created, and carefully examined before a selection was made. Adam Hinks’ (graphic designer and Hidden Notes co-founder) graphical contributions to the vinyl packaging utilise similar techniques; digital text made physical, distorted by hand on the way back into the computer…
The album will be released as a limited edition deluxe 180g 12" transparent vinyl record coupled with an exclusive hand-assembled booklet of additional artwork printed on transparent paper. Click here to pre-order
BANDCAMP: https://joshsemans.bandcamp.com/
“A track of solitary glacial beauty that shimmers as it builds steadily in intensity.” Fresh On The Net
“Beautiful, affecting, alien and otherworldly but in all cases brilliant.” Higher Plain Music
”Semans and his collaborators artfully magic up a deeply felt seasonal highlight…” Monolith Cocktail
“Josh Semans’ electroacoustic sound mirrors nature’s sublime qualities.” Particular Sound
“Trust is an utterly breathtaking piece of instrumental music and it grabbed my attention immediately.” The Sound Sniffer
”The harmonic language is semi-modal and there is a filmic undercurrent. The whole thing is quite beautiful.” Trust the Doc