Jonathan Crossley

Northern Irish by birth, South African by life, Crossley is a versatile musician, performer, educator and composer with a specialised interest in contemporary musical cultures and technologies. His musical practice ranges from classical guitar to improvisation, jazz through to electronic music and sonic experimentation. He has released eight albums, the chamber jazz album ‘My Friends and I’ (2004) to the rock/funk albums ‘Funk for the Shaolin Monk’ (2007) and ‘Got Funk Will Travel’ (2009) the experimental album ‘What if the Machines Spoke Back to You’ (2018), ‘The Settlement’ with Mpho Molikeng (2018), ‘Blipz’ with Reza Khota and Jonno Sweetman (2018) and the EP by his project ‘Deep Spacer’ (2019). He has relentlessly pursued innovation in not only the use of the guitar and technological systems but in the application of these technologies in recording and looping practices. His PhD research led to the development of an extended guitar system or hyper-instrument, the Cyber-Guitar, which extended the capacities of the traditional electric guitar beyond the use of the hands, encompassing the joints of the upper body through the use of a mechanical exoskeleton. (Concert performances can be viewed on You Tube). He is currently working on a collaborative projective with visual experimenters ‘Dryfsand’ fusing visual narratives and improvisations with the closed electronic ecology of Deep Spacer. You can find all of his music on all streaming services, from Spotify to Apple Music and You Tube