Philip Jeck

An English experimental composer and performance artist, Philip Jeck fashioned eerie sonic constructions and ambitious large-scale installations through the use of vintage record players. By combining looping units with assorted analog and digital processing, he revealed latent grooves inside discarded discs while welcoming crackle and overload. His output spanned abrasive rhythmic pieces and spectral extended drones. During the early 1980s he first explored turntables and electronics, issuing his earliest recordings on the British imprint Touch beginning in 1995; that label later put out several signature works, among them Surf, Stoke, and 7. He worked alongside Gavin Bryars, Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit, and Janek Schaefer, while his visual pieces appeared in prominent galleries. He also wrote scores for opera, ballet, and cinema.

After completing visual-arts studies at Dartington College in Devon, Jeck launched a performance practice that took him into both gallery spaces and warehouse parties, where he adopted techniques pioneered by American hip-hop turntablists such as Grandmaster Flash. A five-year partnership with contemporary dancer Laurie Booth proved decisive, steering him toward a distinctly personal approach rooted in plunderphonics-style sampling akin to that of Canadian artist John Oswald. In 1993, together with Lol Sargent, Jeck mounted the Vinyl Requiem installation, deploying 180 turntables along with twelve slide projectors and two film projectors; the project earned a Performance Award from Time Out. The next year he appeared on the Blast First! anthology Deconstruct alongside Christian Marclay, John Oswald, Bruce Gilbert, and Stock, Hausen & Walkman. Touch released his debut album, Loopholes, in 1995, followed four years later by Surf. Intermedium Records issued the double-CD Vinyl Coda I-III in 2000, drawn from radio broadcasts and live sets, with Vinyl Coda IV arriving the subsequent year. Also in 2001 Jeck contributed to the Sub Rosa double-CD 4 Parabolic Mixes, which reinterpreted Henri Pousseur’s 8 Études Paraboliques alongside versions by Pousseur, Main, and Oval.

A 2002 duo performance with fellow turntablist Claus van Bebber was documented on Intermedium’s Viny’l’isten. Another live recording, Invisible Architecture #1, captured with Otomo Yoshihide and Martin Tétreault, appeared on Audiosphere. That same period saw Touch release both the solo album Stoke, among his most widely praised, and the collaboration Soaked with Jacob Kirkegaard. Two further solo sets arrived in 2003: 7 on Touch and Host on Sub Rosa. The following year brought Songs for Europe (Piosenki Dla Europy) with Janek Schaefer on Asphodel and Live in Leuven with Jah Wobble and Jaki Liebezeit on 30 Hertz Records. Touch documented a 2005 performance of Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking of the Titanic by the Italian ensemble Alter Ego featuring Jeck on turntables in 2007. Sand, his first solo album in five years, came out on Touch in 2008, as did the split 7-inch Amoroso with Fennesz, both artists reshaping a recording by organist Charles Matthews. Touch and Autofact Records jointly issued the vinyl-only Suite: Live in Liverpool in 2009, while The Tapeworm released the cassette Spool, constructed solely from bass-guitar sources.

Touch put out the collaborative 7-inch Spliced with Marcus Davidson in 2010, the same year it released Jeck’s solo album An Ark for the Listener. God Records issued the double-LP TablesAreTurned in 2011, a collaboration with Alter Ego and Bernhard Lang built upon a track by Amon Düül 2. After several digital-only live documents, Jeck returned to physical formats in 2015 with the double-LP Cardinal on Touch. God Records reissued Vinyl Coda across two double-LP sets, I-II appearing in 2016 and III-IV following in 2018. Touch released the live CD Iklectik, recorded at the London venue of the same name, in the intervening period. The digital release Arcade, also taped at Iklectik, surfaced in 2018. Stardust, a collaboration with Faith Coloccia, appeared in 2021. Jeck died on March 25, 2022, at the age of 69.