Bradford Reed

Bradford Reed is a Brooklyn, NY based composer, performer and producer who fights and tames the idiosyncrasies of the pencilina, an original instrument of his own design and construction. The pencilina is an electric ten stringed collision of the hammer dulcimer, slide guitar, koto and fretless bass with six pickups of varied types. It is struck with sticks, plucked and bowed, giving Reed an incredibly wide sonic palette which has been recently expanded with the use of analog modular synthesizer processing. Many have enjoyed Reed’s frequent street performances and club dates all over the world. He played with King Missile III (and produced 4 of their records) and in the Blue Man Group’s original band. He has composed for film and television including the music for the first season of Superjail! on Adult Swim and 3 seasons of Ugly Americans on Comedy Central. He scored Transfatty Lives which won the audience awards for best documentary in the Tribeca, Milan and American film festivals. The debut album by Ohmslice, his latest project with poet Jane LeCroy, will be released on vinyl by Imaginator Records in September.

Bradford’s focus in the recording studio at Pioneer Works will be on unconventional systems of music making and sound generation from human tendencies and physical vibration. He’ll be joined by a crew of collaborators capturing adventures in structured and freeform instrumental work, rhythm, electro acoustic processing (mostly centered around analog synthesis, drumming and the penicilina) and phase mosaics.