Sound artist from Colchester. Studied Music Tech in Huddersfield, and could straddle music and engineering departments and experiment for four years. Learning the recording process as well as making music - a great place for a curious mind. Frazer’s first professional music work was performing cover versions for streaming platforms. It was a great learning experience creating different genres and recording them from home. He had an original band called Feeds when he lived in Leeds… sounds like the start of a limerick. He moved to Colchester in 2015 when his parents moved there. He joined Young Art Collective at FirstSite - they had a programme called Circuit funded by The Tate, so young people could put on events in the gallery. And University of Essex had a Games Hub programme, and Frazer started making music for computer games in a company called Teaboy Games. His first sound art used a Makey Makey circuit board, which is a physical interface for a computer - you might have seen banana pianos on YouTube. He started building ‘room scale’ instruments, rigging up whole rooms to play as an instrument. People emotionally love music, but fear getting it wrong, so making new instruments helps them feel the magic. CLIP was a jam night group for non-musicians to play together with gadgets at FirstSite Gallery - Nintendo DS and Hexabugs played alongside traditional instruments. They devise improvisation games and challenges to encourage empathic listening and lead into improvised music. Work with people better than you and use it is as learning experience - If I’m the stupidest person in the room then I’m probably in the right room. Frazer and a group pf musicians played a performance in C in the sea at Great Yarmouth - watched by a real seal! Big up Sue Hogan and Beth Hull at First Site for giving young artists opportunities to experiment and develop. What is foley? Making sound effects for films. You can levitate items between sound waves using acoustic levitation - it is sound science magic. Frazer’s experiment went viral on TikTok. Creating cymatic patterns on Chaladni plates. Frazer invented a device called Photon Smasher which lets you listen to light! Born out of solar panels being used as microphones. Frazer took it to Japan and scanned all of the neon lights, vending machines, and Pachinko machines. The light sounds of Southend’s sea front lights are melodic and beautiful. Why do fairgrounds have pumping music? The answer will surprise you! What is Electronic Music Open Mic (EMOM)? Try your electronic music in front of other creators. Frazer collected plastics from the River Colne and turned them into filament for his 3D printer, and used them to 3D print bird whistles. Circuit bending is taking apart a toy (SAFELY! Don’t do it with anything mains powered!) and poking the electronics to see what happens. 

Frazer Merrick website

Frazer on Instagram

Are You Creative? recorded by Adam at Lawker Media, Chelmsford, ESSEX
Edited by Nick Hearne
Artwork by Alpaca Antenna

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Thanks to NGDA for their support