Patch Notes: Cam Deas

A hybrid modular set with live visuals from Cam Deas and Ben Moon.

For the second of a series of Patch Notes episodes filmed behind closed doors by Fact at 180 The Strand, we invited The Death of Rave artist Cam Deas to perform a hybrid modular set, with live visuals from audiovisual artist Ben Moon.

Deas’ set was roughly based around a performance he’d prepared for a five-week tour around Europe in April and May this year, which was cancelled due to the pandemic. “It was meant to be the tour for my last album, Mechanosphere, which came out at the end of last year so has a lot of material from that,” Deas says.

Deas performs with a modular rig, laptop and effects units. “This is the set up I’ve been using live since last year,” he says. “I generally have to rethink it when a new record comes out, how to perform it in a way that keeps a lot of improvisation and unpredictability, to keep it interesting and different for me I guess. It’s based around the same pieces of equipment I use in the studio – a synth, computer and a few effects – but flipped around.

“On Mechanosphere, the computer was sequencing the synth, whereas live the computer is used to play those sounds and samples so I can mess with them, with another looper, processing parts back through the modular to try and tear it apart more.”

Live visuals for the session are provided by Ben Moon, who Deas met while living in Sheffield over a decade ago. “We’ve played a lot of shows before and Ben’s done live visuals for me on other projects. We’d been meaning to do some new live work together since last year, and he did the video for ‘Drift Through’ off Mechanosphere. The way he worked with it is similar to my live approach, using the sounds to react with synthesised images and then in turn use those as loops, sort of visual samples, to be improvised on and manipulated again in real time.”

Mechanosphere is available now on The Death of Rave.