{{Short description|British electronic music composer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox musical artist | name = Sevish | genre = Experimental music | years_active = 2005-present | website = {{URL|https://sevish.com/}} }} '''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.<ref name="Sevish Interview" /><ref name="Biography - Sevish Music" /> 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.<ref name="Sevish インタビュー Interview with Sevish" /><ref name="Microtonal Tunings in Electronic Dance Music: A Survey of Precedent and Potential" /> He first gained notoriety in the microtonal music scene with his 2010 release ''Golden Hour''.<ref name="Microtonal Tunings in Electronic Dance Music: A Survey of Precedent and Potential" /><ref name="Review: Sevish – Rhythm And Xen" /><ref name="Sevish - Harmony Hacker" /> 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".<ref name="Hugill" />
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<ref name="Making microtonal music on Linux computers" />), and Max/MSP.<ref name="Sevish Interview" /> 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.<ref name="Microtonal Tunings in Electronic Dance Music: A Survey of Precedent and Potential"/><ref name="Sevish, Glacier, Louis-Vincent Hamel, Zeitgeber, John Zorn, and Jack Quartet" /> 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".<ref name="Microtonal Tunings in Electronic Dance Music: A Survey of Precedent and Potential"/>
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.<ref name="Sevish Interview"/><ref name="Microtonal Tunings in Electronic Dance Music: A Survey of Precedent and Potential" />
==Discography== '''Solo Work''' *''Sevish EP'' (2005) *''Crowded Images'' (2008) *''Exposure EP'' (2009) * ''Golden Hour'' (2010) *''Human Astronomy'' (2010) *''Sean but not Heard'' (2012) *''day:dot EP'' (2013) *''Rhythm and Xen'' (2015) *''MK-SUPERDUPER'' (2016) *''Harmony Hacker'' (2017) *''Horixens'' (2019) *''Odds and Ends'' (2020) *''Bubble'' (2021) *''Formless Shadows'' (2021) *''Morphable'' (2022) *''Murmurations'' (2023) *''Big Sway'' (2023) *''One With the Fractal'' (2025) '''Collaborations''' *''Crack My Pitch Up'' with 9 other artists (2010)<ref name="Various Artists - Crack My Pitch Up - Microtonal music at split-notes" /> *''Subversio'' with Tony Dubshot and Jacky Ligon (2011) *''2MM2'' (''2 Minute Masterpieces 2'') with 15 other artists (2013)<ref name="[FNet050] Various - 2MM2 : Faturenet Collective : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive" /> *''23'' with Tony Dubshot and Jacky Ligon (2014) *''Next Xen'' with 18 other artists (2016)<ref name="Various Artists - Next Xen - Microtonal music at split-notes" /> *''3 Remixes'' with Acreil, Brendan Byrnes, and ZIA (2019) *''STAFFcirc vol. 7 - Terra Octava'' with 16 other artists (2021)<ref name="STAFFcirc vol. 7 - Terra Octava {{pipe}} STAFFcirc" /> *''Maglonia - Remix'' with M F TroniX (2022)
==References== {{Reflist| refs =
<ref name="Sevish インタビュー Interview with Sevish">{{cite web |last1=Wakabayashi |first1=Hidekazu |title=Sevish インタビュー Interview with Sevish |url=http://microtonaldiary.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-10.html |website=microtonaldiary.blog.fc2.com |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref>
<ref name="Microtonal Tunings in Electronic Dance Music: A Survey of Precedent and Potential">{{cite journal |last1=Hart |first1=Adam |title=Microtonal Tunings in Electronic Dance Music: A Survey of Precedent and Potential |journal=Contemporary Music Review |date=6 September 2016 |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=242–262 |doi=10.1080/07494467.2016.1221635|s2cid=193673867 }}</ref>
<ref name="Biography - Sevish Music">{{cite web |title=Biography - Sevish Music |url=https://sevish.com/biography/ |website=sevish.com |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref>
<ref name = "Hugill">Hugill, Andrew (2018). [https://books.google.com/books?id=WVBtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT197 ''The Digital Musician''], p. 197. Routledge. {{ISBN|1351337386}}</ref>
<ref name="Sevish Interview">{{cite web |last1=Johnson |first1=Aaron |author-link = Aaron Krister Johnson|title=Sevish Interview |url=http://untwelve.org/interviews/sevish |website=untwelve.org |accessdate=6 April 2020}}</ref>
<ref name="Review: Sevish – Rhythm And Xen">{{cite web |last1=Tremblay |first1=Dæv |title=Review: Sevish – Rhythm And Xen |url=https://canthisevenbecalledmusic.com/review-sevish-rhythm-and-xen/ |website=Can This Even Be Called Music? |accessdate=22 April 2020 |date=5 May 2015}}</ref>
<ref name="Sevish - Harmony Hacker">{{cite web |last1=Tremblay |first1=Dæv |title=Sevish - Harmony Hacker |url=https://canthisevenbecalledmusic.com/sevish-harmony-hacker/ |website=Can This Even Be Called Music? |accessdate=22 April 2020 |language=en-CA |date=19 June 2017}}</ref>
<ref name="Sevish, Glacier, Louis-Vincent Hamel, Zeitgeber, John Zorn, and Jack Quartet">{{cite web |last1=Tremblay |first1=Dæv |title=Sevish, Glacier, Louis-Vincent Hamel, Zeitgeber, John Zorn, and Jack Quartet |url=https://canthisevenbecalledmusic.com/sevish-glacier-louis-vincent-hamel-zeitgeber-john-zorn-and-jack-quartet/ |website=Can This Even Be Called Music? |accessdate=22 April 2020 |language=en-CA |date=11 July 2019}}</ref>
<ref name="Various Artists - Crack My Pitch Up - Microtonal music at split-notes">{{cite web |title=Various Artists - Crack My Pitch Up - Microtonal music at split-notes |url=http://split-notes.com/various-artists-crack-my-pitch-up/ |website=split-notes.com |date=11 July 2010 |accessdate=6 September 2021}}</ref>
<ref name="[FNet050] Various - 2MM2 : Faturenet Collective : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive">{{cite web |title=[FNet050] Various - 2MM2 : Faturenet Collective : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive |url=https://archive.org/details/FNet050 |website=archive.org |date=21 July 2013 |accessdate=17 September 2021}}</ref>
<ref name="Various Artists - Next Xen - Microtonal music at split-notes">{{cite web |title=Various Artists - Next Xen - Microtonal music at split-notes |url=http://split-notes.com/various-artists-next-xen/ |website=split-notes.com |date=6 February 2016 |accessdate=20 July 2021}}</ref>
<ref name="STAFFcirc vol. 7 - Terra Octava {{pipe}} STAFFcirc">{{cite web |title=STAFFcirc vol. 7 - Terra Octava {{pipe}} STAFFcirc |url=https://sexytoadsandfrogsfriendcircle.bandcamp.com/album/staffcirc-vol-7-terra-octava |website=bandcamp.com |accessdate=23 July 2021}}</ref>
<ref name="Making microtonal music on Linux computers">{{cite web |title=Making microtonal music on Linux computers |url=https://sevish.com/2019/how-to-make-microtonal-music-on-linux/ |website=sevish.com |date=13 October 2019 |accessdate=7 June 2022}}</ref>
}}
==External links== *{{Official|https://sevish.com}} *[http://split-notes.com/ ''split-notes'' website]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sevish}} Category:Living people Category:Microtonal composers Category:1988 births Category:Experimental composers Category:British composers