Elaine Walker is a

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

electronic musician ''Electronic Musician'' is a monthly magazine published by Future US featuring articles on synthesizers, music production and electronic musicians. History and profile ''Electronic Musician'' began as ''Polyphony'' magazine in 1975, publis ...

and author born in 1969. She wrote a physics/philosophy book, “Matter Over Mind: Cosmos, Chaos, and Curiosity” (2016). She specializes in

microtonal music Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...

, including founding

ZIA Zia or ZIA (also spelled Ziya, Ḍiya , Dia or Diya) may refer to: People * Zia (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** A romanization of the Wu ( Shanghainese) pronunciation of the Chinese surname Xie (謝) ...

, an all electronic band, and performing with D.D.T. She has performed with Number Sine.Homepage
, ''ZIASpace.com''. She describes: "I compose microtonal music strictly by ear and leave it to others to analyze, so you won't find ratios or mathematics here."

Life

Raised in southern New Mexico "by two loving mathematicians, Elaine grew to love the desert in all of its glory and wide openness". Her father was

Dr. Elbert A. Walker Doctor is an academic title that originates from the Latin word of the same spelling and meaning. The word is originally an agentive noun of the Latin verb 'to teach'. It has been used as an academic title in Europe since the 13th century, w ...

. Walker has a Music

Synthesis Synthesis or synthesize may refer to: Science Chemistry and biochemistry *Chemical synthesis, the execution of chemical reactions to form a more complex molecule from chemical precursors ** Organic synthesis, the chemical synthesis of organ ...

Production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

degree from

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...

(1991) and a master's degree in Music Technology from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(2001). In her Masters Thesis she developed a new kind of music compositional theory called "Chaos Melody Theory based on recursive chaos mathematics". She was a musical director for

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...

with

4Kids Entertainment 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (formerly known as Leisure Concepts, Inc. and later known as 4Licensing Corporation) was an American licensing company. The company was previously also a film and television production company that produced English- dub ...

, and later

GoGoRiki ''Kikoriki'', known in the United States as ''GoGoRiki'' or ''BalloonToons'' and in Russia as ''Smeshariki'' (russian: Смешарики), is a Russian animated television series consisting of 307 episodes of 6 minutes and 30 seconds each, aime ...

. Each summer she is Education and Public Outreach Coordinator for the NASA-Haughton-Mars Project. Her Martians video was recorded there in 2003 (commissioned by NASA) to promote the prospect of humans living on Mars.

Work

Solo work

Walker had already released her debut

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

titled '' Blue Cartoon'' in 1989, before moving to work as ZIA. Walker returned to solo work and self-released two studio albums, 2006's ''

Martians Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s as the Moon was evidently lifeless. At the time, the pred ...

'' and 2011's '' Drum 'n' Space''. Walker released her second EP in 2018 titled ''

Four-Momentum In special relativity, four-momentum (also called momentum-energy or momenergy ) is the generalization of the classical three-dimensional momentum to four-dimensional spacetime. Momentum is a vector in three dimensions; similarly four-momentum is ...

'', which was followed a year later by her sixth album ''

Trapezoid A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...

''.

Composition

She has composed using various equal temperaments, including the

Bohlen–Pierce scale The Bohlen–Pierce scale (BP scale) is a musical tuning and scale, first described in the 1970s, that offers an alternative to the octave-repeating scales typical in Western and other musics, specifically the equal-tempered diatonic scale. The ...

: ''Stick Men'' (1991), ''Love Song'', and ''Greater Good'' (2011). Other tunings include 10, 16, 17,

19 equal temperament In music, 19 Tone Equal Temperament, called 19 TET, 19 EDO ("Equal Division of the Octave"), or 19 ET, is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 19 equal steps (equal frequency ratios). Each step represent ...

and 20. Elaine Walker's solo music includes many space or alien themed titles, including "Red Dreams", "Martian Nation", "Humans and Martian Machines", "The Tenth Planet", and Frontier Creatures.Luckman, Michael (2005). ''Alien Rock: The Rock 'n' Roll Extraterrestrial Connection'', p.268. . She composed the

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

Yuri's Night Yuri's Night is an international celebration held every April 12 to commemorate milestones in space exploration. It is named for the first human to launch into space, Yuri Gagarin, who flew the Vostok 1 spaceship on April 12, 1961. In 2011, Yur ...

ZIA

In 1991, she formed the band ZIA, named after the

Zia sun symbol The Zia or Tsʾíiyʾamʾé are an indigenous nation centered at Zia Pueblo (Tsi'ya), a Native American reservation in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The Zia are known for their pottery and use of the sun symbol. They are one of the Keres Puebl ...

featured in the

Flag of New Mexico The official flag of New Mexico consists of a red sun symbol of the Zia people on a field of gold (yellow). It was officially adopted in 1925 to highlight the state's Native American and Hispano roots; it combines a symbol of the Puebloan peop ...

.Elaine Walker
, ''Discogs.com'' In the early years ZIA has also performed with

Emergency Broadcast Network Emergency Broadcast Network is a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post, and Brian Kane (author ...

A Flock of Seagulls A Flock of Seagulls are an English new wave band formed in Liverpool in 1979. The group, whose best-known line-up comprised Mike Score, Ali Score, Frank Maudsley and Paul Reynolds, hit the peak of their chart success in the early 1980s. The ...

, and

Marilyn Manson Brian Hugh Warner (born January 5, 1969), known professionally as Marilyn Manson, is an American rock musician. He came to prominence as the lead singer of the band which shares his name, of which he remains the only constant member since it ...

in the Boston area. ZIA were an American

industrial rock Industrial rock is a fusion genre that fuses industrial music and rock music. It initially originated in the 1970s, and drew influence from early experimental and industrial acts such as Cromagnon, Throbbing Gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten a ...

band based out of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. ZIA released six albums: '' Zia v1.2'' (1992), '' Zia v1.5'' (1994), ''

Big Bang! ''Big Bang!'' is the second album by English alternative rock group Fuzzbox, released in 1989. It includes four singles which reached the UK Singles Chart: "International Rescue" (No. 11), "Pink Sunshine" (No. 14), "Self!" (featuring a guitar s ...

'' (2000), ''

'' (2006), '' Drum 'n' Space'' (2011) and ''

'' (2019) In 1989 Walker recorded her first song, titled "Waiting for the Winds (Woza Moya)", as ZIA and in 1989 released it on the ''Zulu Hits'' various artists compilation by

Celluloid Records Celluloid Records, a French/American record label, founded by Jean Georgakarakos (sometimes shortened to Jean Karakos) operated from 1976 to 1989 in New York City, and produced a series of eclectic and ground-breaking releases, particularly in the ...

. She recorded '' Zia v1.2'' in 1992 and brought in a band for '' Zia v1.5'', her second release.

Fifth Colvmn Records Fifth Colvmn Records was a record label based in Washington, DC. The label was founded in 1990 by Zalman Fishman, owner of the nightclub FIFTH COLVMN, located in Washington D.C. The label's first release was Chemlab's debut EP Ten Ton Pressure. ...

released the EP ''

Shem Shem (; he, שֵׁם ''Šēm''; ar, سَام, Sām) ''Sḗm''; Ge'ez: ሴም, ''Sēm'' was one of the sons of Noah in the book of Genesis and in the book of Chronicles, and the Quran. The children of Shem were Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, L ...

'' in 1996, and the composition "Space-Time" was released on the label's ''

Echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the list ...

'' compilation. The album showcased her atonal composition technique with

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

Discography

* '' Blue Cartoon'' (1989) * ''Mars'' (2000)

As ZIA

Studio albums * '' Zia v1.2'' (1992, Blue Cartoon) * '' Zia v1.5'' (1994, Blue Cartoon) * ''

'' (2000, Zia/Chaos Control) * ''

'' (2006) * '' Drum 'n' Space'' (2011) * ''

'' (2019) * ''No Terrestrial Road'' (2020) Extended plays * ''

SHEM Shem (; he, שֵׁם ''Šēm''; ar, سَام, Sām) ''Sḗm''; Ge'ez: ሴም, ''Sēm'' was one of the sons of Noah in the book of Genesis and in the book of Chronicles, and the Quran. The children of Shem were Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, L ...

'' (1996, Fifth Colvmn) * ''

'' (2018) Compilation appearances * ''Zulu Hits'' (1989,

Celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporar ...

) * ''

'' (1996, Fifth Colvmn) * ''Boston Elektro 101 (1996, Sinless) * ''Mind/Body Compilation Volume 3'' (1996, Atomic Novelties/DIY) * ''Musical Sampler 1998'' (1998, Deus ex Musica) * ''Movement 1998'' (1998, Deus ex Musica) * ''Shades of Grey'' (1998, Grinding Into Emptiness) * ''She: A Female Trip-Hop Experience'' (2001, Sonic Images Electronica) * ''Bloc Party - Tapes'' (2013, !K7)

Sources

External links

Elaine Walker's site
, ''ZIAspace.com''.
ZIA
at

Bandcamp Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...

YouTube.com/miselaineeous
, ''YouTube channel with historical and most up-to-da ZIA videos, theory, vertical keyboards, philosophy, life'' * “Matter Over Mind: Cosmos, Chaos, and Curiosity” hardcover *Africa, Chris (2004).
Pro-Space Activist Elaine Walker
, ''Ultraverse''.
Elaine Walker
, ''Discogs.com''.
Zia Biography
, ''AllMusic.com''. * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Elaine American women composers 21st-century American composers American electronic musicians American industrial musicians Microtonal musicians Space advocates Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American women musicians 21st-century women composers