Ernie Althoff

Ernie Althoff’s activities in the field of experimental music gained momentum in the late 1970s when he became part of Melbourne’s Clifton Hill Community Music Centre. Early explorations with vari-speed cassette players, circuit-bent radios, toys and found objects soon led to the construction of simple sound devices, e.g. aluminium wind-chimes of different timbres, which were used in his performances.

In 1981, his first kinetic acoustic ‘music machine’ was exhibited, followed in 1982 by the first of an extensive and ever-changing series of performances, all titled “Ernie builds a machine”. Alongside this series, another series titled “Machines and me” also started later in that year. In all of these works, an array of re-appropriated record-players, cassette players, oscillating electric fans and a few kitchen appliances provided the motive force for the performance of aleatory percussion-based textures.

1988 saw the first of Althoff’s many larger installations, often in art galleries and similar spaces. This work continues to this day.

Also in 1988, Althoff read about the Baschet brothers’ classification of sound transference i.e. why instruments ‘do what they do’, in the U.S. Journal “Experimental musical instruments” (to which he was a regular contributor), and everything fell into place. With this knowledge, an awareness of the potential for sophistication with often deceptively simple means and materials came to the fore.

His work continues.