David Jackman is a British musician and visual artist with an extensive catalogue of

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

works, mostly as the principal — and often sole — member of Organum. Jackman's earliest known musical activity was as a member of

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, ...

Scratch Orchestra The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental musical ensemble founded in the spring of 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton. In the draft constitution published in the ''Musical Times'' of June 1969, Cardew defines a scrat ...

between 1969 and 1972. He later spoke highly of the value of his experiences in the ensemble, writing in 1994 that ''"I joined the orchestra in 1969 and soon found myself thrown into an energetic environment where to my surprise my musical ideas, however tentative, would be taken seriously and would actually get realised"''. In 1979 he began to release very short runs of cassette singles, in line with the prevailing underground cassette culture. These were almost all released under his given name or the moniker Monoplane. It was not until 1983 that he began to use the name Organum and release his work on vinyl on various labels around Europe as well as his own imprint, Aeroplane. Many of his releases are short; he has released several one sided 7" singles and many EPs. In an interview with US magazine ND (''issue 20, 1995''), he declared ''"I don't enjoy lengthy programmes. A 70 minute CD is similar to the old double album. And I never did like that"''. Live performances by Jackman have been very rare and he consents to very few interviews. Despite this relative seclusion, Organum has been a platform for many collaborations with contributors including Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound, Christoph Heemann, Robert Hampson, Jim O'Rourke, Michael Prime of

Morphogenesis Morphogenesis (from the Greek ''morphê'' shape and ''genesis'' creation, literally "the generation of form") is the biological process that causes a cell, tissue or organism to develop its shape. It is one of three fundamental aspects of deve ...

Eddie Prévost Edwin John Prévost (born 22 June 1942) is an English percussionist who founded the free improvisation group, AMM. Early years Of Huguenot heritage, Prévost's silk weaving ancestors moved to Spitalfields in the late 17th century. He was bor ...

of AMM, Andrew Chalk and

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference aris ...

artists The New Blockaders. He also made a single, "Breakthrough" for The Haters without the intervention or collaboration of their principal member, GX Jupitter-Larsen; Jackman's website reports that Larsen said of the single that "''my music has never sounded better''". Prévost, Stapleton and Heemann all released Organum albums on their respective labels with other releases appearing on

Touch Records Touch (sometimes mistakenly written 'Touch Records' and sometimes written Touch Music, which is technically the publishing side of the company) is a British audio-visual organisation, operating the Touch label. Touch was founded in 1982 by Jon ...

, Robot Records and German label Die Stadt. More recently, he guested with AMM and made several collaborative releases with percussionist

Z'EV Z'EV (born Stefan Joel Weisser, February 8, 1951 – December 16, 2017) was an American poet, percussionist, and sound artist. After studying various world music traditions at CalArts, he began creating his own percussion sounds out of indust ...

, all credited jointly to Z'EV and Organum. He is also known for the distinctive artwork which adorns his releases, mostly surreal colourful collages, often meticulous in their detail. However, he has also released some recordings in deliberately spartan or even non-existent artwork - one CD release came in a clear

jewel case Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage. Jewel case ...

with no paper parts or other packaging. The official website archives nearly all of this artwork. Jackman continues to create new works as well as reissuing earlier, long-unavailable titles.

References

External links

Official website with full discography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackman, David British experimental musicians Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Cassette culture 1970s–1990s