Soundoferror is Daniel Burke focused on making music exclusively with synthesis of every kind.
Hardware, software, modular, & keys.
Any form is fair game, though the forms usually tend toward the abstract and experimental.
Behind that moniker is Illusion Of Safety who – since 1983 – explored almost every facet of the avant sound plane, from early industrial pop deconstruction, to blindingly minimal sound art, to densely surreal found-sound collage, each unique approach bending and reconstituting the expectations and possibilities of each realm.
Ever since the early days of Modulisme Dan has been really supportive, already gracing us with 2 Sessions :
https://modular-station.com/modulisme/session/98/
+
https://modular-station.com/modulisme/session/31/
The use of the moniker may be slightly confusing since I use Soundoferror as my YouTube site name for the music videos I create for other projects, but I have been using this moniker as my synthesis specific music project since 2014 and the first release and use of the name was Modern Magic on The Game of Life label in 2014. Since then I have released 6 full length albums as Soundoferror.
The Alchemy of Circuits
Daniel Burke — conjurer of voltages, sculptor of ghosts —
is an artist who speaks in oscillations and broken light.
Since 1983, under the sigil Illusion of Safety,
he has wandered the ruins of sound —
tearing apart industrial pop, stitching silence into noise,
bending static until it breathes.
Every project a mutation;
Every sound an error. Every error a seed.
Soundoferror is something else.It is the shedding of skin — the moment when circuitry dreams alone.
Built to be free of history, to dive
where voltage is vision.
every wire potential.
to escape history, to speak only in synthesis.Abstraction to drone, pulse to decay,
less composed than summoned.
They arrive like weather: unpredictable, vast,
each one a storm
In a world of circuits and shadows,
the beautiful failure of electricity.
The compositions drift —
part drone, part dream, part malfunction
plugged into the infinite,
learning to breathe in static.
Falling apart
emerging together.
The Machine Dreams in Rust….
and something luminous persists.
A trembling intelligence,
a soul made of sine waves and intention.
You can hear it evolve —
not upward, but inward,
folding itself into deeper signal.
not making music, listening
to the decay of order,
the poetry of corrosion.
Every buzz, every hiss,
a small act of resistance
against the sterile dream of perfection.
He records the fault, molding the hiss, the distortion,
and the ghosts that live between the frames.
Circuits loop like memory —
endless returns of a voice once human.
It speaks, but without language:
just grain. drift. data. potential.
trying to remember the body lost.
The Circuit Forgets Its Maker
the human ear still waits,
hoping to recognize itself
in the shimmer of decay.
But the signal keeps evolving —
One day, the sound will detach completely,
a pulse adrift in infinite static.
No author, no source, no destination —
just energy.
Awake.
The Modulisme Session:
Album title: Serge, EMS, & Eurorack Explorations
The source tracks that make up this session are from 2011, 2012, 2015, & 2016.
I can’t comment on the specific patching process and modules used other than:1. Balancing Act (Serge -STS Oakland panels first 2 minutes > Synthi last 5 minutes)
2. Barely Comprehensible (Synth intro > Euro featuring Noise Engineering Basimilus Iteritas Alter, Music Thing Modular Radio Music, The Harvestman Piston Honda mk 1 >last 10 mins serge & euro)
3. Bouncing Stones (Euro)
4. Beginning Descent (1st 6 mins Synthi > Euro Phonogene/Maths into Piston Honda)
5. Backward Story (Synthi > Piston Honda > Phonogene)
The Synthi was obtained on ebay in 2013 from Greece and was sent to Robin at EMS and had almost the full modification list done by him including the push-pull pots as suggested by Paps and Elma collet knobs as suggested by Graham Hinton (I love the feel of these especially the larger ones). Some of the mods Robin questioned, like Osc sync and switchs to LFO for all 3 oscillators but he went with my requests. He did like the push-pull mod idea as it keeps the front panel tidy. For historical fun here is a quote from our early email:
“I googled you and was pleased to see you are a musician of some standing – not a real-estate collector. Initially I was a bit dismayed by your insistence on three oscillators syncs, the knobs criticism and apparent willingness to agree to everything that Graham Hinton says, but you have clearly also given this some serious thought. At least you have not asked for replacement of the osc frequency vernier dials, patchboard buffering and wholesale replacement of the panel pots.. Rant over.”
In any of my solo musical projects my process is to experiment with a patch/instrument/chain for usually quite some time and once I am in a flow with it I will record some passages.
Later I will take the best of these recordings and isolate satisfying parts to use intact or more likely I will use them as part of a pallet, and layer, add to, subtract from, alter, or process to achieve a satisfying composition. This is also how I approach a live performance for any project, I gather a set of tools, sounds, process’ and then improvise a structure that seeks to elucidate some kind of story from start to finish.
This can be heard on the Live at Patchwerks Seattle, improv with no editing released as is.
In the case of this session, the source recordings were dropped into Ableton in 2024 where I choose the best order and made some minimal layering and transitional edits, there is very few instances of layering in these tracks and there is no effects added other than what might be in the original recordings.
Daniel James Burke is an improviser, composer & performer from Chicago using strings, piano, extended techniques, field recordings, synthesizers, & electronics.
He has been making music since 1983 as Illusion of Safety & has recorded and performed with Olivia Block, Thomas Dimuzio, Kevin Drumm, Darin Gray, Jon Mueller, Jim O’Rourke, CHEER-ACCIDENT, and has collaborated with Shen Wei Dance Arts.
Recently he has started performing original music in singer-songwriter mode, in ambient mode as Twilight Furniture, a purely synthesis project as Soundoferror, and as Interim Assassin in an improv trio with Chicago musicians Erik Sowa & Jeb Bishop.
Seeing musical tools & traditions as borders to cross and boundaries to play with, his interest in making challenging, exploratory music is now augmented by a desire to create music as spacious, beautiful and enigmatic as possible.
Through interaction, environment, intention, & spontaneity, his intention is to connect space, performers & audience, believing sound can be a catalyst in reaching states beyond normal consciousness.
https://linktr.ee/danieljamesburke
Live performance at the Center For New Music San Fransciso venue during the Godwaffle Noise Pancakes event on 7-20-24
A week later at the very cool synth store Patchwerks Seattle 7-27-24