About John Derek Bishop // Tortusa
John Derek Bishop (alias Tortusa) is a Norwegian-American electronic musician and producer from Stavanger, Norway. He has released four albums on Jazzland Recordings and was nominated for the Spellemann Prize (Norwegian Grammy) for his solo album «I Know This Place». His albums have received good critics and feature contributions from artist Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Erland Dahlen, and more. Tortusa frequently performs live in Europe.
A cornerstone in Tortusa´s production is the texture and timbre of sound. He searches for sounds that are out of the ordinary and places the listener in different emotional states. For compositional processes, Tortusa utilizes both hardware equipment and software including retro tape recorders, modular synthesizers, samplers and a diverse array of other tools. On stage Tortusa live samples the musicians he plays with creating an intense and spontaneous experience. Aside from making music he works with photography and has made the cover art for his albums.
A cornerstone in Tortusa´s production is the texture and timbre of sound. He searches for sounds that are out of the ordinary and places the listener in different emotional states. For compositional processes, Tortusa utilizes both hardware equipment and software including retro tape recorders, modular synthesizers, samplers and a diverse array of other tools. On stage Tortusa live samples the musicians he plays with creating an intense and spontaneous experience. Aside from making music he works with photography and has made the cover art for his albums.
Bishop´s main instrument when performing is live-sampling. Below is a live-sampling studio performance with saxophonist Inge Weatherhead Breistein, all recorded live with no overdubs.
