How Portrait XO and Rick Feds use finger drumming in their electronic music production

In electronic music, technology and creativity have always played a game of ping-pong to help composers and producers come up with unique and fresh sounds, sometimes through extensive research, and sometimes through inspired luck and studio experimentation. There is no shortage of options with new instruments and VSTs released pretty much every day, and with the million ways of using and combining each of them.

As many stories go, musicians start playing as children, learning traditional instruments with varying levels of joy and success, and as their musical knowledge and social life expand, some turn to an electronic music practice, whether analog or digital, perhaps attracted by the scene, or perhaps by the sea of options one can happily swim in when getting started on building their studio. 

Berlin-based Portrait XO and Riga-hailing Rick Feds are musicians and technologists who both started with acoustic instruments, piano and drums, until they found their way to electronic sounds. Interestingly enough, their traditional practice led both of them to finger drumming.

While Portrait XO kept on researching for more ways to express their musicality, Rick Feds built his practice on intensive finger drumming learning until he was named one of the best by Ableton, makers of the Push. 

In a micro documentary created with thanks to Neumann and the SAE Institute Berlin, Rick Feds explains what finger drumming means to him:

You can hear more about his practice and his tracks in this radio show from Los Angeles’ beloved station Dublab.

Portrait XO, who first pivoted from acoustic to electronic music with finger drumming, has now evolved to training their own AI models, blending analog instruments and MIDI controllers, using a fader for beat production instead of finger drumming, and off-grid circular MIDI sequencing. You can see how some of the magic happens in the studio in a short demo filmed by Struktur.

The first single from ‘The Cost of Connection’, Portrait XO’s new album merging data activism and ethical AI, features electronica sound research and United Nations socio-political data that’s been sonified into the tracks, theme by theme. A percentage of the release goes to Brian Eno's EarthPercent, an initiative aimed at mitigating the music industry’s environmental footprint by supporting ‘most impactful organisations addressing the climate emergency’.

“For ‘Electronic Waste’, the first single from my upcoming debut LP, I used Max/Msp Data Sonification tools by Manifest Audio to sonify the UN’s 17 SDGs, and electronic waste was one of the data sets,” explains Portrait XO. “It also features some sounds from my custom Neutone AI model that I trained on my own productions. I wanted to use all these tools and approaches to highlight critical data that require urgent attention. I feel pretty disheartened about the way things are going, but I’m holding onto some hope because I’m not the only artist who cares about data activism.”

Check out Rick Feds’ latest singles via YouTube and Soundcloud; the second single from Portrait XO’s upcoming album is out now via Bandcamp, the full LP lands on on May 1