One day, this too will all be obsolete. Why? Because San Francisco’s Recombinant Media Labs–built by Asphodel label heads and industrial music experimenters Naut Humon and Mitzi Johnson–puts into question everything you’ve ever thought possible about composing, recording, and performing electronic art. And in the years to come, they’ll likely top themselves again.

Housed in a non-descript warehouse building in San Francisco’s South of Market district, RML (which also encompasses the Asphodel label office) is comprised of an unprecedented 16.8.2-channel, 10-screen surround-cinema performance environment with an external control room, an acoustic performance space with a grand piano, a suite full of synthesizers new and old, a DVD- and CD-mastering studio, and a full-on recording studio with all the bells and whistles of current and bygone eras. But, as Humon says, it’s not the technology that drives RML: “It’s the people.” Based on a model that enables the music community at large, Humon and participating artists (from Jarboe of Swans to Thomas Brinkmann) privately seek grant monies to sponsor their performances and residencies. Artists rarely clock in for the day. Instead, they often spend weeks at a time at the studio, collaborating and creating site-specific musical and visual works.

Today, British sound sculptors Semiconductor are in the studio’s master control room, chatting with Australian electronic art curator Paul Thomas and sound designer Nigel Helyer while putting the finishes touches on a multimedia piece that sonically interprets the sun’s radiation. They’ll later perform it as part of San Jose’s International Symposium on Electronic Art. Tomorrow, the room’s booked for Ryoji Ikeda, who has composed an audio-visual piece that he’ll present while looking in from the outside of the RML’s state-of-the-art listening environment.

Join Naut Humon as he presents us with a glimpse of one of electronic art’s finest facilities ever.

Synth Room
Here is an analog haven where artists can come in and grab sounds for their work. It’s all based around hard and soft synths from the past and present, starting from the ’70s when I used this SMS Salamander modular synthesizer with joysticks, oscillators, thumbwheels, and all kinds of custom modules like the Outside World Interface. There’s also a nine-panel Serge Modular System, which interfaces to the MiniMoogs, drum machines, a full-blown KYMA Capybara computation engine and every type of software synthesizer, so you can play the room like one giant machine. Florian Hecker was here for days just plugging things in, and he used the source material during his residency for a live event.

Video- and DVD-Editing/Authoring Suite
This spot is where AV editors from the community can weld together visual and audio source material into a coherent piece; the model here is building a bridge between cultural and commercial style jobs. The first client here was Lou Reed, who played a new version of Metal Machine Music transcribed and performed by a group named Zeitkratzer from Berlin–an 11-piece group of brass, strings, and percussion–and the inside of a piano; they documented the live concerts of MMM in Berlin and brought the results back to mix and edit with Lou and some of his people.

The Surround Traffic Control Room
This is a spatial-media-synthesis (or surround-cinema) model for all sizes of rectangular rooms in the world. We chose a 10-screen format–with three screens on each wall and two on each end–but of course this can be scaled down or up, because most global media festivals have only one to four big screens. The panoramic screens are linked to 16 audio channels–eight near the ceiling and eight near the ground, so you can project horizontal, vertical, or diagonal sound trajectories in the X, Y, or Z axes. For multi-channel video, we have 10 DVD players that can all be synchronized together, or real-time video signals can directly emanate from numerous desktop or laptop computers.

The Recombinant Media Labs Performance Theatre
This is our larger acoustic-treated space; our main 360-degree periphonic cinema hub, which the smaller STC control room emulates. The audiences that enter are immersed from all sides by the network of high-resolution screens and speakers. They are welcome to stand, sit, or move around according to the performer’s plan, which can optionally include installation- or exhibition-style setups. As experiential engineers, we archive the full impact of the entire production for future playback screening scenarios. This includes the ability to sculpt even the bass frequencies in the unusual formations of eight added sub-low channels, which augment the full-range, circular, 16-speaker array. Couple this with a stereo Infra sub-wave front for a deeper “point-two,” and 32 transducers under the floor, and you have a 16.8.2 PA matrix with configurable crossovers. A fascinating research and “envelopment” environment for the inter-media navigator!

Asphodel Studio’s Main Mix A
This chamber represents a hybrid of a sound-to-picture suite and an audio recording and mixing apparatus. The primary feature is a Neve VR-72 console, which dates from around ’93, during the last generation of the bigger analog boards. We had Madlabs in L.A. hot-rod it to 2006 specifications. For monitoring, we utilize two sizes of PMC speakers along with a Dynaudio 5.1 system for broadcast and film audio surround. There are extensive racks of vintage and recent hardware processor equipment for all forms of dynamics applications, including tube and optical technologies. Add to that a powerful Pro Tools system and analog tape machines, as well as all the platforms of DP, Logic, Nuendo, Max/MSP, Supercollider, and PD for full compatibility with home preparation studios.

“There’s a certain sound or aesthetic that people associate with being a ‘New York band,'” notes Mike Bell-Smith, lead vocalist and percussionist for five-borough denizens Professor Murder. “We don’t necessarily fit into that whole Velvet Underground/Ramones/Strokes lineage, but what we’re doing is a product of living in New York. [It’s] the whole idea of seeing a million people everyday in this crazy place and walking through neighborhoods with a million types of people, and how that affects your psyche.”

Bell-Smith’s assertions are reinforced by the band’s cheeky publicity photos, which find the four members clad in “I [Heart] NY” t-shirts. The cover art to their debut EP, Professor Murder Rides the Subway (Kanine), is a cartoonish (yet dead-on) caricature of a crowded subway car occupied by hipsters, hobos, and a Hasid.

But what’s most “New York” about P-Murder–who take their name from a skit on the late-’90s comedy show, Mr. Show–is how the band effortlessly incorporates the hip-hop- and dancehall-dominated sound of the NYC streets into their punk rock aesthetic, much in the way Gang of Four, PiL, and The Clash freaked funk and dub 25 years ago. While other so-called “post-punk” acts are still squeezing the last juices out of Entertainment!, Second Edition, and Sandinista!, Rides The Subway finds Bell-Smith chanting “Rah! Rah!” (“Champion”) and referencing rapper Cam’ron’s obsession with color (“Cam’ron’s New Color Pt. 3”), while he and his instrument-switching bandmates accentuate their percussive, bass-heavy sound with timbales, cowbells, melodicas, and blaring air horns. The group has also been known to drop instruments altogether–under the name King Oppression, they rock house parties by performing acapellas of their songs over dancehall riddims like Coolie Dance and hip-hop instrumentals like that of Lil’ Kim’s “Lighters Up.”

While the CD release of Rides The Subway this summer has given P-Murder (as the group members refer to themselves) “it band” status, their non-careerist approach to their future is refreshing. The group will soon release an extended version of their EP on vinyl–featuring reinterpretations of their work by a diverse group of remixers including Tigerbeat 6’s Stars As Eyes, ragga jungle producer Murderbot, hip-hop DJs Caps and Jones, and fellow Kanine Records act Mixel Pixel–but they don’t have a full-length LP or even a national tour in the works at the moment.

“If you go to a job everyday, you have to do things you might not want to do, or present yourself in a certain way,” says Jesse Cohen, the group’s keyboard- and electronic-drum manipulator. “Music is one part of our lives where we really want to feel like we’re honest, and do the things we want because we can, and it’s ours. None of us [is] super-hungry; now that we have a little press, we [don ‘t] feel we have to push it to the next level because that’s ‘what you have to do.'”