Sean Archibald (born 1988), also known as Sevish, is a British
electronic music composer from
London. Described by
Aaron Krister Johnson as "a well-known creative force in the world of online microtonal music," he is most known for his compositions which combine aspects of
electronic dance music with
microtonality.[1][2] As a child Archibald was inspired by music in video games such as
Chrono Trigger,
Streets of Rage, and
Sonic the Hedgehog. He would then go on to discover microtonality as a teenager by listening to
gamelan music and
Aphex Twin. At age 16 he began officially releasing music online and released his first solo album at age 20.[3][4] He first gained notoriety in the microtonal music scene with his 2010 release, Golden Hour.[4][5][6] Sevish's 2011
xenharmonic dance album, Subversio, created in collaboration with Tony Dubshot and Jacky Ligon was described by
Andrew Hugill as "
dub meets microtonal tunings."[7]
Since most instruments in the
West are built to play the
12-tone equal tempered scale, Archibald turned to less common instruments and methods of composing microtonal music. He now uses an AXiS-49 hexagonal MIDI controller to play his microtonal music, along with various
DAWs such as
Ableton Live,
Bitwig Studio (on a
Linux system[8]), and
Max/MSP.[1] The tuning systems he uses to create his music include
22-EDO,
15-EDO,
10-EDO,
13 limit just intonation, the
Bohlen-Pierce scale,
Pelog tuning, and many others.[4][9] Adam Hart of the
University of Salford said that his compositions "do not indicate a desire to move away from the archetypes of established EDM genres, but rather to explore alternative tunings through familiar stylistic approaches".[4]
Archibald has expressed a desire to make microtonality more widely consumed by the public, creating multiple side projects to achieve this goal. He is the creator and host of Now&Xen, a podcast about microtonal music. In 2010 he founded his own record label,
split-notes, which is focused on promoting music which uses microtonal scales,
alternative tuning systems, and
xenharmonics.[1][4]
^
abcdeHart, Adam (6 September 2016). "Microtonal Tunings in Electronic Dance Music: A Survey of Precedent and Potential". Contemporary Music Review. 35 (2): 242–262.
doi:
10.1080/07494467.2016.1221635.
S2CID193673867.