tstex bio

tstex makes a special kind of pan-galactic cantina music. Shows build with looping layers of subsonic digital saxophone, bass heavy drums, trancy synths, heavy guitars, baritone vocalizations, and earthy tenor sax. Whilst perhaps best known as the Saxophone player from The Jess Ryan Band, tstex plays multiple instruments, and has a background in composition, production, and visual music. A deep commitment to the magic of live music performance demands that all loops are performed live, and no pre-recorded music tracks are used. The addition of audio-driven lights and visuals adds dimension to shows and enriches the overall journey.

tstex first emerged during the doctoral research of Andrew D Lyons in the early 2000’s. That research involved rendering the visual correlates of spatialized music to multiple speaker arrays and stereoscopic displays. The visual music work “Schwarzchild” was finished in 1999, “Loucid” in 2000, and “Heisenberg” in 2002. These visual music works can be found on YouTube, and their creation is described in the 2003 thesis, “Time Space Texture: An Approach To Spatial Audio-Visual Composition” (University of Sydney). 

After moving from Australia to the USA in 2003 to work on hollywood visual effects, feature animation, and games, a musical hiatus began. By 2016 though, music creation had begun anew. This second creative start traced the same steps taken back in time during the first creative beginning. It began with saxophone, then guitar, in bands, in pubs and clubs, then composition, which required recording, and finally involved visuals. The big difference these days is that the visuals can be performed live. 

Although based in Oregon these days, tstex regularly visits Australia, and tours the Pacific Northwest.