.

2008

Blastcorp is the solo project of 31 year old musician, music software designer, producer and visual artist Kris Keogh. Originally from Arnhem Land, NT, Keogh is now based in Osaka, Japan, after spending many years in Darwin, Australia.

Classically trained, Blastcorp’s music ranges from the glitch based, instrumental electronica of his early albums, through to the sweet, indietronic musings of ‘Chrysanthemum’, to acoustic songwriting on his latest album ‘Hearts Blast Graves’. He combines intricate electronics with heartfelt acoustic songwriting, to create cutting edge music equally suited for the dancefloor or living room.

Fiercely independent, he has self-released six albums and three EP’s since 1999, including his latest album ‘Hearts Blast Graves’ in handmade felt pouches and his 2006 album ‘Chrysanthemum’ on vinyl picturediscs.

Blastcorp’s song ‘A Thousand Miles Away’ from ‘Chrysanthemum’ has received regular Triple J airplay, with Blastcorp topping the Triple J Unearthed Electronic Charts in 2007 and being Richard Kingsmill’s Pick Of The Week in 2005.

Blastcorp performs live regularly playing the laptop, guitar and singing. Blastcorp has played across Australia since 2001, supporting the likes of Diplo (USA), Leafcutter John (UK), Freq Nasty (UK), The Mad Professor (UK), Francisco Lopez (Spain), The Herd, Regurgitator, Dsico, and TZU.

Kris designs his own sound processing software using Native Instrument’s Reaktor. His creations can be downloaded from the Native Instruments website and are free for registered Reaktor users.

Kris is also a member of indie guitar duo Red Plum & Snow, beautiful noisemakers The Australian Feedback Orchestra and Darwin swamp rock establishment Horse Trank.

When he’s not making music, Kris is a visual artist, drawing and painting on anything he can get his hands on.



2004

here’s a real old one…

Blastcorp is the studio (turned live) project of Darwin, Australia based Kris Keogh. After completing a degree in classical guitar, and then trying to play the most dissonant, out of tune guitar in several rock bands, Kris embraced technology.

Armed with an old akai sampler and a cd player with a scratch button, he produced the first three Blastcorp albums, blip (2000), shelfstacking(2001) and ilura (2001). They were handmade, limited edition runs, most of which are now out of print…

They were described as:
‘like listening to a Playstation hump a John Cage record’ (Oddbox, New York)
‘headfuck fractured techno for freaking out your neighbours’ (Farrago, Melbourne)
‘undancable dance music’ (Darwin Fringe Festival program)

During this period Keogh also set up his own record label, Collapsed Records, started a political rap band, Toekeo, and started doing hip hop workshops with aboriginal kids out on communities.

The Toekeo track ‘John Howard is a Filthy Slut’ from 2002 soon gainied national rotation on Triple J, but the accompanying film clip was banned by rage ‘for legal reasons’. During 2003 Kris went back to his roots, got his guitar out and started writing songs. Verse, chorus, verse, chorus. He then wrecked these in his computer.

The results were found on the nightsky EP (2003). People liked this stuff. Triple J, fbi and 2SER all picked it up, and Kris sent the EP out as demos near and far …

Around this time the blastcorp live experience started growing. More players were added, with the linup settling with Kris on laptop and vocals, Francis on guitar, vox and gamelan, and Michael on cello and gamelan.

By mid 2004, 15 tracks were finished and it was time to release something. Kris then got word from Manchester / Berlin based City Centre Offices that they might like to release the new album, to be called chrysanthemum. Release is scheduled for early 2005.