“Being exposed to Cage forced me to expand my consciousness and enhance my appreciation of the sounds — intended or accidental — that are always around us, and helped me compose works that use conventional and unconventional instruments alike. All sounds are acceptable musical materials,” he adds.

“Stockhausen’s compositions brought the idea of movement to me, how he used the direction of the sounds and their movement in space as aspects of form,” says Devine. “It was another totally new concept to incorporate into my music — this idea of surrounding the listener with sound, to actually imply movement.”

From Punk to Electronic Music
Early in the 1990s, when techno was becoming more popular, Devine started to get interested in electronic music. He’d enjoyed hip-hop and aggressive punk music in his early adolescent years, listening to everything from Dead Kennedys to Public Enemy, Minor Threat and Fugazi.

“When industrial music came out, it kind of fused both of those elements together. It was this new form of music that combined the hard-edged elements of punk mixed with these low bit digital sounds of hip hop and digital sampling,” says Devine. “And for me, it was the perfect hybrid… a nice transition from what I’d just come from.

“As the industrial scene was coming in, and the scene of the late 80s started to die out, I was hearing interesting things happening in Canada and England with techno music and with groups like Meat Beat Manifesto and Coil. So I started getting more into experimental music,” he reflects.

“It was another totally new concept to incorporate into my music — this idea of surrounding the listener with sound, to actually imply movement,” says Sonic Mayhemist Richard Devine.