Lichens

About

Lichens was a main recording alias of multi-instrumentalist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, created in 2004 for his solo and collaborative studio recordings and live performances. Lichens uses modular synthesizer to loop, manipulate and process his wordless vocals in real time to create hypnotizing, deep listening drone soundscapes. Largely inspired by works of Harry Partch, who invented his own 43-note scale system within the frequency range of a conventional Western 12-tone octave, Robert Lowe is primarily interested in synthesizer as a unique instrument with an ability to make sounds "right in between the notes". Apart from his voice, Lichens uses other unconventional sounds sources, including a human body or plants, which are connected to a synthesizer through a MIDI Sprout (a custom-built box which reads bio-signals through EEG pads and converts them into MIDI signal).