Art + Music + Technology

When my friend Tom Hall first introduced me to the music of Deru, I was immediately drawn in. It was the combination of complexity and structure that I love in ambient work, but it was also unabashedly electronic and had edge that I liked. But I got a surprised when I did a little digging around, and found out that Benjamin Wynn, the man behind Deru, was also deeply entrenched in the music-for-TV world, having done music and sound design (with his partner Jeremy Zuckerman) for Avatar - The Last Airbender, Kung-Fu Panda - Legends of Awesomeness and others. A couple of Emmys speak to the quality of that work. In addition to that (!), he is also one of the founders of The Echo Society, a composer's collective that is gaining traction by producing a concert series that pushes people's perception of classical music concert - and modern music. All of this points to an amazingly efficient music and sound producer, and one that is able to work within - and embrace - many different sound environments. In our chat, we